Cast a generic type in input a method to set a specific property in common between two classes

Question

My first post here - I hope to give you all info required. I tried to check online anmd in forum but I cannot find the same case - maybe is not possible -.-'

This is my situation:

I have two classes with same properties (I cannot change it, add an interface or abstract class)

public class InputA {
  private String status;
  private String name;
  ....
}
public class InputB {
  private String status;
  private String name;
  ....
}

private <T> VerifyRequest createVerifyRequest(T input) {

   if (input instanceof InputA)
      input = (InputA) input;
   if (input instanceof InputB)
    input = (InputB) input;

    VerifyRequest request = new VerifyRequest;
    verifyRequest.setStatus (input.getStatus());
    ....
    ....
    ....
    return request;
}

My idea is to cast because I know only two different type are possible.

What am I missing?

Thanks in advance for your support ^^

---

I tried to pass Object too

private VerifyRequest createVerifyRequest(Object input) {

   if (input instanceof InputA)
      input = (InputA) input
   if (input instanceof InputB)
    input = (InputB) input;

    VerifyRequest request = new VerifyRequest;
    verifyRequest.setStatus (input.getStatus()); //this give me error  (Cannot resolve getStatus in Object)

Answer 1

input is of type T so you can't cast it to InputA or InputB. You could do something like below but it is not that elegant:

private <T> VerifyRequest createVerifyRequest(T input) {
    VerifyRequest request = new VerifyRequest();

    if (input instanceof InputA){
        InputA a = (InputA) input;
        request.setStatus (a.getStatus());
    } 
    else if (input instanceof InputB){
        InputB b = (InputB) input;
        request.setStatus (b.getStatus());
    }

    return request;
}