Storing Mutiple Classes/Data Types in a Linked List

Is the following possible?

I have 2 classes that extend a parent class;

Animal - the parent class
Dog - extends animal
Cat - extends animal

Now from another class in the package I create a linked list, say myanimals, and I want to store both Dog and Cat in myanimals.

I then want to iterate through the list and if the type execute a method that is present in both of the Dog and Cat classes.

Is it possible to do this or does a list only contain one data type? I have been playing with attempting to do this and I can not seem to find a way to do it.

Thanks
Andy

yes its possible : List<Animal> myanimals = new LinkedList<Animal>();

How do you add items say from Cat or Dog?

I have tried

Cat temp = new Cat(2000); // create new object
myanimals.add(temp);

and it gives the following error?

The method add(Animal) in the type LinkedList<Animal> is not applicable for the arguments (Cat)

How should I go about adding the item to the list?

Thanks
Andy

?? Thats correct. Are you sure, that your Cat class extends the Animal class?

class Cat extends Animal ??

Ahhh :)

I thought I had added "Extends Animal" to the end of the class definition when clearly I had not.

Thanks, that works.

Now how would you go about checking if it was a Dog or a Cat Class? Use status flags or is there a way to get the class type name?

Yeah, make sure that Cat extends Animal and Dog extends Animal.

And if thats the case then Cat and/or Dog should get inside the LinkedList myanimals.

Because here, polymorphism gets into the picture and we can pass subclass object where superclass object is expected.

Goldest

Equality, Relational, and Conditional Operators (The Java™ Tutorials > Learning the Java Language > Language Basics)

-> The Type Comparison Operator instanceof

Thanks, I just discovered that one myself a moment or two ago :)

I started learning Java a few months back and are getting back into it and i'm jumping all over the shop learning what I need to know, using Sams Teach yourself Java, googling for stuff as well, and getting rather confused at times as well. :)

Thanks again!
All good fun. :)