creating a list of class objects to compare them with another class object

Question

First of all, sorry, this question might be answered already, but my searches didn't really tell me anything and i don't really know what I am searching for anyway.

Basically, I need to create a List of class objects (only store the class / don't store initialized objects - don't really know how to explain)and compare them to another class object (ala instanceof). But I have no idea how to do this.

An Example would be:

I want to do this:

if(something1 instanceof something2)

with a List of "something1's", to be able to iterate through it like this:

for(int i= 0 ; i <= list.size; i++) 
{
  if (list.get(i) instanceof something2)
    doSomething();
}

so I basically need to know how/what I have to store in the actual list to be able to do something like that.

Is this possible?

I hope this is somewhat understandable.

Answer 1

You can compare classes using equals() method, this method will check if the class is exactly the same.

So you first put classes in a list (assuming you have classes Foo and Bar and a list is List<Class>):

list.add(Foo.class);

And then you iterate over it and do comparison like this:

if (list.get(i).equals(Bar.class))
    doSomething();