How to cast a String to an object reference?

[Shawn]

Dear All,

I have a Person class already. Now I have a String:

public class Person()
{
void sayHello()
{
System.out.println("Hello");
}

}

Person goodGuy = new Person();

String str = "goodGuy";

(Person)str.sayHello(); //Error: cannot cast from String to Person

This is desireable or I am just totally out of my mind?

 

[Chris Uppal]

Person goodGuy = new Person();

String str = "goodGuy";

(Person)str.sayHello(); //Error: cannot cast from String to Person

This is desireable or I am just totally out of my mind?

Er... The latter, I'm afraid.

-- chris

 

[Robert Klemme]

Er... The latter, I'm afraid.

I was going to say the same.

Shawn, you probably still operate in C++ mode - where such a cast can be
made to work. (Whether it's reasonable is a completely other
discussion.) In Java you will have to write an explicit conversion
either with a constructor of Person that accepts a String or via some
(probably static) method that does the job.

Kind regards

robert