OOP in Java: Class inheritance with method chaining

Question

I have a parent class, which defines a collection of chainer methods (methods that return \"this\"). I want to define multiple child classes that contain their own chainer

Answer 1

I've written this sample using generics based on your needs.

class Parent {
    public  T foo() {
        return (T)this;
    }
}

class Child extends Parent {

}

class AnotherChild extends Parent {

}

public class Test {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        Parent p = new Child();
        System.out.println(p);
        Child c = p.foo();
        System.out.println(c);
        //throws ClassCastException here since Child is not AnotherChild
        AnotherChild ac = p.foo();
        System.out.println(ac);
    }
}