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Message:

Is it possible to implement Class references in Java?

Posted by Gavin Kingsley on August 13, 2000 at 6:12 PM

I come from a Delphi/Object Pascal background. In that language it is easy to define a type

TShapeClass = class of TShape;

I can then have some method that accepts these class references:
procedure SomeMethod(NewShape: TShapeClass)
var
Shape: TShape;
begin
Shape := NewShape.create(X, Y);
{etc}

If TBox is a subclass of TShape, I can pass in a reference to TBox into my SomeMethod and have it construct new instances of that class.

I haven't seen how to do this in Java. Any suggestions? My implementation at the moment uses the Abstract Factory design pattern (someMethod takes a ShapeFactory as a parameter, so it can also accept a BoxFactory) but that seems a little like overkill.

• RE:Is it possible to implement Class references in Java Kishori Sharan August 14, 2000 at 4:15 PM (3)
  • Re: Is It Possible to implement Class references in Java Gavin Kingsley August 17, 2000 at 5:03 PM (2)
    • Re: Creating object from class reference Kishori Sharan August 18, 2000 at 12:33 PM (1)
      • create object of class anvar bakenov August 29, 2000 at 4:50 PM (0)