Unexpected ClassCastException when using Java Reflection to invoke a method from a subclass in an interface context
I'm wondering if anyone has experience with I've been working on this all day and I'm upgrading from an older version and I'm working on a project and hit a roadblock... I'm working with a `ClassCastException` when trying to invoke a method on a subclass using Java Reflection. My setup includes an interface `Animal` with a method `makeSound()`, and I have two classes: `Dog` and `Cat`, both implementing `Animal`. The scenario arises when I try to invoke `makeSound()` on a `Dog` instance, but I'm casting the reference to the `Animal` type. Here's the relevant code: ```java public interface Animal { void makeSound(); } public class Dog implements Animal { public void makeSound() { System.out.println("Woof!"); } } public class Cat implements Animal { public void makeSound() { System.out.println("Meow!"); } } public class AnimalSoundPlayer { public void playSound(Animal animal) { try { Method method = animal.getClass().getMethod("makeSound"); method.invoke(animal); } catch (NoSuchMethodException | IllegalAccessException | InvocationTargetException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } } } public class Main { public static void main(String[] args) { Animal dog = new Dog(); AnimalSoundPlayer player = new AnimalSoundPlayer(); player.playSound(dog); } } ``` When I run this code, I get a `ClassCastException` stating that `Dog want to be cast to Cat`. This is odd because I'm only using the `Dog` instance. I have already verified that the method `makeSound()` exists in the `Animal` interface and is correctly implemented in both subclasses. I've tried different approaches, such as checking the actual object type before invoking the method, but the behavior continues. Could this be related to how Java handles casting in reflections or is there something I'm missing? I'm using Java 17, and I've double-checked that the correct class is being used at runtime. Any insights would be greatly appreciated! I'm working on a web app that needs to handle this. Am I missing something obvious? I'm developing on Linux with Java. Is this even possible? I'm on Ubuntu 22.04 using the latest version of Java. Thanks in advance! Any ideas how to fix this? I'm on CentOS using the latest version of Java. Any suggestions would be helpful.