Check if a Class Object is subclass of another Class Object in Java

Question

I'm playing around with Java's reflection API and trying to handle some fields. Now I'm stuck with identifying the type of my fields. Strings are easy, just do myField.getType().equals(String.class). The same applies for other non-derived classes. But how do I check derived classes? E.g. LinkedList as subclass of List. I can't find any isSubclassOf(...) or extends(...) method. Do I need to walk through all getSuperClass() and find my supeclass by my own?

Answer 1

Another option is instanceof:

Object o =...

if (o instanceof Number) {

  double d = ((Number)o).doubleValue(); //this cast is safe

}