Calling method that exists in child classes but not in parent class

Question

public class Parent {
    ....
}

public class Child1 extends Parent {
    ....
    public void foo() {
        ....
    }
}

public class Child2 extends Parent {
           


        

Answer 1

You could implement an AbstractChild inheriting from Parent and then extend this class instead of Parent:

public class Parent {
    ....
}

public abstract class AbstractChild extends Parent{

    public abstract void foo();

}



public class Child1 extends AbstractChild {
    ....
    public void foo() {
        ....
    }
}

public class Child2 extends AbstractChild {
    ....
    public void foo() {
        ....
    }
}

So you need to only check if your instance is instanceof AbstractChild.