Forcing a vector to become an array.

Question

I have a method I want to call that returns a vector of generic object instances. I want it to return an arraylist of instances of my specific class.
neighbors = netGrid.getVonNeumannNeighbors(x, y, false);//vector my VN neighbors. Where neighbors is a class vector. I'd like neighbors to be a local arraylist. Is there a way to do this? I've tried casting neighbors as an array, but since getVonNeumannNeighbors returns a vector, this obviously didn't work, as I've found out.

Answer 1

Perhaps I should have included the whole method so you can see the problem.
     public void creatingEdges() {
          neighbors = netGrid.getVonNeumannNeighbors(x, y, false);//vector my VN neighbors.
          ArrayList <Node> temporary = new ArrayList <Node>();
          for ( int i = 0; i < neighbors.size(); i++ ){//for every neighbor node stored in neighbors
               Object o = neighbors.get(i);//get an object out of the vector.
               System.out.println("Object #" + i  + " is a " + o.getClass().getName());//check that it's a node..
               if (o instanceof Node) {//if it is
                    temporary.add((Node) o); //add it to the temporary array list
               for (int j = 0; j <temporary.size(); j++) {//for all the neighbors in temporary
                    Node neighborNode = new Node();// cast it as a Node 
                    System.out.println("the neighbor node's ID is " + neighborNode.getID());
                    if (neighborNode.getEdgesFrom(this) == null){//if the neighbor node doesn't have an edge FROM this node
                         Edge anEdge = new Edge(); //make a new edge.
                         anEdge.setFrom(this);//send a new edge from this node
                         anEdge.setTo(neighborNode);//connect that edge to the neighbor.
                         this.addOutEdge(anEdge);//tell this node it's got a new out edge.
                         neighborNode.addInEdge(anEdge);//tell the neighbor node it's got a new in edge.
     }While the method is still a work in progress, I'd like to use an array list instead of a vector, since then I can get rid of half the crap in this method. Here's the API for the problem method: http://repast.sourceforge.net/api/uchicago/src/sim/space/Object2DGrid.html
Can it be cast as an array?