Question regarding Inheritance.Please HELP

Question

A question regarding Inheritance
Look at the following code:
class Tree{}
class Pine extends Tree{}
class Oak extends Tree{}
public class Forest{
public static void main(String args[]){
  Tree tree = new Pine();
  if( tree instanceof Pine )
  System.out.println( "Pine" );
  if( tree instanceof Tree )
  System.out.println( "Tree" );
  if( tree instanceof Oak )
  System.out.println( "Oak" );
  else System.out.println( "Oops" );
}If I run this,I get the output of
Pine
Oak
Oops
My question is:
How can Tree be an instance of Pine.? Instead Pine is an instance of Tree isnt it?

Answer 1

The "instanceof" operator checks whether an object is an instance of a class. The object you have is an instance of the class Pine because you created it with "new Pine()," and "instanceof" only confirms this fact: "yes, it's a pine."
If you changed "new Pine()" to "new Tree()" or "new Oak()" you would get different output because then the object you create is not an instance of Pine anymore.
If you wonder about the variable type, it doesn't matter, you could have written "Object tree = new Pine()" and get the same result.