Dynamic class casting during runtime

Question

I'm reading parameters for my application from the configuration file. Then in the code I should dynamically during the runtime make class cast:
(instead of having String in the code, I should cast the object to the class that was
defined in the configuration file.)
String tmp = (String) object;
Could somebody provide an example how can I do this? I have understood I could use reflection API for this problem.

Answer 1

I am not sure that I understand what you are asking correctly, but it might be something that bothered me some time ago.
My problem was that I wrote names of Classes (as Stings) into a file, and later wanted to be able to initialize a specific object of the class based on String names that were read from that file.(sorry if this is confusing).
I was programing a Chess simulator. All figures were subclasses of the class Figure, and were named Peon, Queen...)
I wanted to make a new Peon object, for every "Peon" String that was read from the file, and to make an new Queen object for every "Queen" in the file and so on.
I used something like this:
String objectName = in.readUTF(); //or some other way to get a String
Figure f = (Figure) Class.forName(objectName).newInstance(); Class.forName(String name) returns a object of class Class that represents all objects of type name.
And invoking .newInstance() gives you a new object of the class that is being represented by the object of class Class that you invoked .newInstance() on.
Sorry - migth be confusing again but i think it is correct.
This call to .newInstance() calls the default no-argument constructor...
There is no way to call a argument containing constructor with .newInstance()