Objects of type Class are useful to analyze the capabilities of classes, and
to generate new objects. In Java 1,0, you could use the forName method to
generate an object of a particular class:
Class cl = Class.forName("java.lang.Double");
Tip
In Java 1.1, you can simply add .class to the name of any type to get the
representative class.
Class cll = Double.class; // it works for classes
Class c12 = double.class; // it works for numeric types
Class c13 = double[].class; // it works for arrays
Class c14 = Cloneable.class; // it works for interfaces
Sample code:
Number n = numberFormat.parse ();
if (n.getClass() == Double.class ) . . .
Note
The Class class should have been called Type since it can represent non-classes
as well (i.e. numbers and interfaces). Note that arrays are classes in Java.
