Can we instantiate an abstract class?

Question

During one of my interview, I was asked \"If we can instantiate an abstract class?\"

My reply was \"No. we can\'t\". But, interviewer told me \"Wrong, we can.\"

Answer 1

Abstract classes cannot be instantiated, but they can be subclassed. See This Link

The best example is

Although Calender class has a abstract method getInstance(), but when you say Calendar calc=Calendar.getInstance();

calc is referring to the class instance of class GregorianCalendar as "GregorianCalendar extends Calendar "

Infact annonymous inner type allows you to create a no-name subclass of the abstract class and an instance of this.