How do I get the type of an object so that I can use it with instanceof?

Question

I'm writing a program in Java and I have a method with a header such as public void doSomething(Object o) and I want to check if o is the appropriate type for a parameter of another method. So what I have is:

public void doSomething(Object o)
{
    Method m = //get method of another method (using reflection)
    Class<?> cl = m.getParameterTypes()[0];  //Get the class of the 0th parameter
    if(o instanceof cl)         //compile error here
         //do something
}

However this doesn't work. Can someone help please. Thanks

Answer 1

Try this instead:

if(c1.isInstance(o))
{
    // ...
}