What is the 'instanceof' operator used for in Java?

Question

What is the instanceof operator used for? I\'ve seen stuff like

if (source instanceof Button) {
    //...
} else {
    //...
}

Answer 1

This operator allows you to determine the type of an object. It returns a boolean value.

For example

package test;

import java.util.Date;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.HashMap;

public class instanceoftest
{
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        Map m=new HashMap();
        System.out.println("Returns a boolean value "+(m instanceof Map));
        System.out.println("Returns a boolean value "+(m instanceof HashMap));
        System.out.println("Returns a boolean value "+(m instanceof Object));
        System.out.println("Returns a boolean value "+(m instanceof Date));
    }
} 

the output is:

Returns a boolean value true
Returns a boolean value true
Returns a boolean value true
Returns a boolean value false