“Cannot be cast to java.lang.Class”, namely: which type is not a class

Question

This may seem a dumb question (as it could be very project specific) but in this case it's general enough:

I'm running a piece of code which gives the ClassCastException , with the error message I wrote as title. Here the mentioned cast is from an object of type java.lang.reflect.Type to Class<?> .

Apart from primitive types, which type in Java is not a class?

Thanks for your answers

Answer 1

A Class is a Type but a Type isn't necessary a Class , since Class implements Type .

Basically, your myType could also be any of the implementing classes of the interfaces GenericArrayType , ParameterizedType , TypeVariable or WildcardType , since they all extend the Type interface.

Try to print myType.getClass() to see the type you mean: you'll get Class<TheSaidType> .

Answer 2

From the Javadoc for Type you can see it has a number of implementing types.

All Known Subinterfaces:
    GenericArrayType, ParameterizedType, TypeVariable<D>, WildcardType

All Known Implementing Classes:
    Class 

Th sub-interfaces are implemented using internal data structure classes.