Having Trouble Reading in an Object

Question

im trying to read in a JTabbedPane (called AZTabs) using this method:
public void readContact(){
        in = null;
        try{
            in = new ObjectInputStream(new BufferedInputStream(new FileInputStream("files/contacts")));
            for(index3 = 0; index3 < AZTabs.getTabCount(); index3++){
                AZTabs = (JTabbedPane)in.readObject();
        }catch(ClassNotFoundException e){
            System.out.println("Caught ClassNotFoundException " + e.getMessage());
        }catch(IOException e){
            System.err.println("Caught IOException " + e.getMessage());
        }finally{
            if(in != null){
                try{
                    in.close();
                }catch(IOException e){
                    System.err.println("Caught IOException " + e.getMessage());
    }whenever i run my app it give me this exception: "Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ClassCastException: javax.swing.JPanel cannot be cast to javax.swing.JTabbedPane". any1 know what i can do to solve this problem?
thnx guys

Answer 1

The data you are trying to read is a serialized JPanel.
When it is read in, the object it produces is a JPanel.
You cannot treat a JPanel as a JTabbedPane because it is not a JTabbedPane, it is a JPanel.
I don't see how you're getting confused.
JTabbedPane p = (JTabbedPane) in.readObject();
// throws a ClassCastException at runtime because the readObject() method is returning a JPanel
JTabbedPane p = (JPanel) in.readObject();
// produces a compiler error because you cannot assign a JPanel reference to a JTabbedPane reference
JPanel p = (JPanel) in.readObject();
// should work just fine and dandy