Overly strong type cast

Reports type casts that are overly strong. For instance, casting an object to ArrayList when casting it to List would do just as well.

Note: much like the Redundant type cast inspection, applying the fix for this inspection may change the semantics of your program if you are intentionally using an overly strong cast to cause a ClassCastException to be generated.

Example:

  interface Super {
    void doSmth();
  }
  interface Sub extends Super { }

  void use(Object obj) {
    // Warning: ((Super)obj).doSmth() could be used
    ((Sub)obj).doSmth();
  }

Locating this inspection

By ID

Can be used to locate inspection in e.g. Qodana configuration files, where you can quickly enable or disable it, or adjust its settings.

OverlyStrongTypeCast

Via Settings dialog

Path to the inspection settings via IntelliJ Platform IDE Settings dialog, when you need to adjust inspection settings directly from your IDE.

Settings or Preferences | Editor | Inspections | Java | Abstraction issues

Use the checkbox below to ignore casts when there's a matching instanceof check in the code.

Inspection options

Here you can find the description of settings available for the Overly strong type cast inspection, and the reference of their default values.

Ignore casts with a matching instanceof expression: Not selected

Availability

By default bundled with: IntelliJ IDEA 2024.1, Qodana for JVM 2024.1,
Can be installed with plugin: Java, 241.18072

Last modified: 18 June 2024