Dynamic JTabbedPane using Reflection

Question

Hi all,
First time posting... I am wanting to created a dynamic JTabbedPane that creates its tabs with dynamic objects, these objects are defined at runtime. I have searched the forums and got this far but I am having trouble with casting the Method object to a type of Component which is what is required by the add(String str,Component comp) ;
I know that I have given it a paramater of type Method, I am not sure though how to cast it to a type Component. The strings "myClassName" and "myTabTitle" have only been used for the purpose of this post.
Some more background information that might be usefull is the .getInstance() method that I am trying to invoke .. the SamConfigPanel class extends a custom abstract class that is of type JPanel.
My code is posted below ... any thoughts??
public static final SamConfigPanel getInstance()
if (samConfigPanel == null)
samConfigPanel = new SamConfigPanel();
return samConfigPanel;
Class cls;
JTabbedPane iTabs = new JTabbedPane();
try
cls = Class.forName("myclassName");
Method method = cls.getMethod("getInstance",new Class[0]);
method.setAccessible(true);
method.invoke(cls, new Object[0]);
// testing for instance of my dynamic class
boolean b2 = cls.isInstance(SamConfigPanel.getInstance());
System.out.println(b2);
iTabs.add("myTabTitle",method.invoke(cls, new Object[0]));
catch(ClassNotFoundException e)
System.out.println(e.toString());
catch(NoSuchMethodException e)
System.out.println(e.toString());
catch(IllegalAccessException e)
System.out.println(e.toString());
catch(InvocationTargetException e)
System.out.println(e.toString());
}

Answer 1

as long as you're shure that your method returns a component it's safe to cast.
if you can't be shure, you'd have to check the return type of your method before invoking directly.
or invoke the method first, then check the object.
Object o = method.invoke(null, new Object[0]);
if ( o instanceof Component)
        iTabs.add(keys,(Component)o);
else
       //do something else, print warning or such