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V6112. Calling the 'getClass' method repeatedly or on the value of the '.class' literal will always return the instance of the 'Class<Class>' type.
The 'getClass' method is used to get the type of the object the method was called on. Likewise, we can use the 'class' literal directly with the type, rather than with the object.
When the 'getClass' method is used with the 'class' literal, the 'Class' type information is retrieved. Let's look at the example:
var typeInfo = Integer.class.getClass();As a result of calling this method, the 'typeInfo' variable stores information about the 'Class' type. This is because the 'class' literal stores information of the 'Class<Integer>' type. When the 'getClass' method is called, we get the information about the 'Class' type, not about 'Integer'. If we need to get the information about the 'Integer' type, we can just use the 'class' literal:
var typeInfo = Integer.class;In addition, there may be an accidental duplication of the call to 'getClass':
Integer i = 0;
var typeInfo = i.getClass().getClass();Just like in the first example, the first call to 'getClass' returns an object of the 'Class<Integer>' type. Calling 'getClass' repeatedly returns the information about the 'Class' type, not about the 'Integer' type. To get the information about the 'Integer' type, just call the method once:
Integer i = 0;
var typeInfo = i.getClass();If we need the information about the 'Class' type, we can use the following statement:
var classType = Class.class;You still can use the 'getClass' method with 'Class.class', as the result will not change:
var classType = Class.class.getClass();Was this page helpful?
