How can I cast an Object to an int in java?
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6What do you really want to do? If the `Object` isn't an `Integer`, I'm not sure what your are expecting from your cast. – unholysampler Sep 07 '10 at 18:19
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2first check with instanceof keyword . if true then cast it. – Dead Programmer Sep 08 '10 at 11:04
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Aww. I just wanted to have enum members to cast to specific integer values, so that I can have enums for winapi constants. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ms646244%28v=vs.85%29.aspx – Tomáš Zato Jan 27 '15 at 19:29
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@TomášZato You can do that (sort of), just define a field in your enum to hold the integer value (say, `intValue`), create a constructor for your enum that sets the `intValue`, have your enum constants invoke that constructor, and add a getter for `intValue`. Then, instead of casting, call the getter. – Brian McCutchon May 23 '16 at 18:12
22 Answers
If you're sure that this object is an Integer
:
int i = (Integer) object;
Or, starting from Java 7, you can equivalently write:
int i = (int) object;
Beware, it can throw a ClassCastException
if your object isn't an Integer
and a NullPointerException
if your object is null
.
This way you assume that your Object is an Integer (the wrapped int) and you unbox it into an int.
int
is a primitive so it can't be stored as an Object
, the only way is to have an int
considered/boxed as an Integer
then stored as an Object
.
If your object is a String
, then you can use the Integer.valueOf()
method to convert it into a simple int :
int i = Integer.valueOf((String) object);
It can throw a NumberFormatException
if your object isn't really a String
with an integer as content.
Resources :
On the same topic :

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Are you sure about the NullPointerException? I thought that a null Object would just yield a null Integer.... – Etienne de Martel Sep 07 '10 at 18:23
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10The `NullPointerException` will occur during the unboxing of `Integer` into `int` – Colin Hebert Sep 07 '10 at 18:24
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You're not casting to an int, no Object can ever be cast to an int. You're actually to Integer and then autoboxing to an int. – Steve Kuo Sep 07 '10 at 19:06
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1@Steve Kuo, Yep, exactly what I'm saying. That's why I didn't use the "cast" word. – Colin Hebert Sep 07 '10 at 19:06
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@Etienne: You can cast a null Object to an Integer, thus getting a null Integer. But when you try to extract the int from it, you'll get a null pointer exception. There's no such thing as a "null int". – Jay Sep 07 '10 at 20:59
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@Colin first check with instanceof keyword . if true then cast it. – Dead Programmer Sep 08 '10 at 11:05
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Also, unboxing to promitives, always should check first if the object is not null. – Shirkam Jul 31 '17 at 08:04
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Scenario 1: simple case
If it's guaranteed that your object is an Integer
, this is the simple way:
int x = (Integer)yourObject;
Scenario 2: any numerical object
In Java Integer
, Long
, BigInteger
etc. all implement the Number
interface which has a method named intValue
. Any other custom types with a numerical aspect should also implement Number
(for example: Age implements Number
). So you can:
int x = ((Number)yourObject).intValue();
Scenario 3: parse numerical text
When you accept user input from command line (or text field etc.) you get it as a String
. In this case you can use Integer.parseInt(String string)
:
String input = someBuffer.readLine();
int x = Integer.parseInt(input);
If you get input as Object
, you can use (String)input
, or, if it can have an other textual type, input.toString()
:
int x = Integer.parseInt(input.toString());
Scenario 4: identity hash
In Java there are no pointers. However Object
has a pointer-like default implementation for hashCode()
, which is directly available via System.identityHashCode(Object o)
. So you can:
int x = System.identityHashCode(yourObject);
Note that this is not a real pointer value. Objects' memory address can be changed by the JVM while their identity hashes are keeping. Also, two living objects can have the same identity hash.
You can also use object.hashCode()
, but it can be type specific.
Scenario 5: unique index
In same cases you need a unique index for each object, like to auto incremented ID values in a database table (and unlike to identity hash which is not unique). A simple sample implementation for this:
class ObjectIndexer {
private int index = 0;
private Map<Object, Integer> map = new WeakHashMap<>();
// or:
// new WeakIdentityHashMap<>();
public int indexFor(Object object) {
if (map.containsKey(object)) {
return map.get(object);
} else {
index++;
map.put(object, index);
return index;
}
}
}
Usage:
ObjectIndexer indexer = new ObjectIndexer();
int x = indexer.indexFor(yourObject); // 1
int y = indexer.indexFor(new Object()); // 2
int z = indexer.indexFor(yourObject); // 1
Scenario 6: enum member
In Java enum members aren't integers but full featured objects (unlike C/C++, for example). Probably there is never a need to convert an enum object to int
, however Java automatically associates an index number to each enum member. This index can be accessed via Enum.ordinal()
, for example:
enum Foo { BAR, BAZ, QUX }
// ...
Object baz = Foo.BAZ;
int index = ((Enum)baz).ordinal(); // 1

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Assuming the object is an Integer
object, then you can do this:
int i = ((Integer) obj).intValue();
If the object isn't an Integer
object, then you have to detect the type and convert it based on its type.

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1`intValue` is much clearer especially considering the beginner confusion between `int` being interchangeable with `Integer`. – Steve Kuo Sep 07 '10 at 19:18
@Deprecated
public static int toInt(Object obj)
{
if (obj instanceof String)
{
return Integer.parseInt((String) obj);
} else if (obj instanceof Number)
{
return ((Number) obj).intValue();
} else
{
String toString = obj.toString();
if (toString.matches("-?\d+"))
{
return Integer.parseInt(toString);
}
throw new IllegalArgumentException("This Object doesn't represent an int");
}
}
As you can see, this isn't a very efficient way of doing it. You simply have to be sure of what kind of object you have. Then convert it to an int the right way.

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Isn't it @Deprecated (e in stead of a)? :) Nice method though, makes no assumptions on the type of the object. – extraneon Sep 08 '10 at 07:25
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By the way, your regex doesn't take radix hex or oct into account. ToInt is a smart method. Bettere to try and catch NumberFormatExcepytion. – extraneon Sep 08 '10 at 16:43
I use a one-liner when processing data from GSON:
int i = object != null ? Double.valueOf(object.toString()).intValue() : 0;

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Its a lengthy process. Just do **(int)Object** instead of **Double.valueOf(object.toString()).intValue()**. This works only for numbers, thats what we needed. – Sudhakar Krishnan Feb 16 '14 at 13:03
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1@SudhakarK: (int) Object does only work if your object is a Integer. This oneliner also supports String numbers; E.G. "332". – Jacob van Lingen Aug 08 '14 at 07:18
You have to cast it to an Integer (int's wrapper class). You can then use Integer's intValue() method to obtain the inner int.

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Answer:
int i = ( Integer ) yourObject;
If, your object is an integer already, it will run smoothly. ie:
Object yourObject = 1;
// cast here
or
Object yourObject = new Integer(1);
// cast here
etc.
If your object is anything else, you would need to convert it ( if possible ) to an int first:
String s = "1";
Object yourObject = Integer.parseInt(s);
// cast here
Or
String s = "1";
Object yourObject = Integer.valueOf( s );
// cast here

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For Example Object variable; hastaId
Object hastaId = session.getAttribute("hastaID");
For Example Cast an Object to an int,hastaID
int hastaID=Integer.parseInt(String.valueOf(hastaId));

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You can't. An int
is not an Object
.
Integer
is an Object
though, but I doubt that's what you mean.

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@Bruno: You can't cast an Object to an int. You can cast an Object to an Integer and then assign it to an int and it will magically autounbox. But you can't cast an Object to an int. – Jay Sep 07 '10 at 21:05
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(continued) Personally, I think people create a lot of bad code relying on autoboxing. Like, I saw a statement the other day, "Double amount=(Double.parseDouble(stringAmount)).doubleValue();". That is, he parsed a String to get a double primitive, then executed a function against this, which forced the compiler to autobox it into a Double object, but the function was doubleValue which extracted the double primitive, which he then assigned to a Double object thus forcing an autobox. That is, he converted from primitive to object to primitive to object, 3 conversions. – Jay Sep 07 '10 at 21:07
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@Jay, agreed on 1st comment (sorry I wasn't clear myself). Regarding too many conversion, you're right too, but I get the impression that the JIT compiler can cope with that quite well, so it shouldn't matter that much in practice (that doesn't necessarily make it an excuse for bad code...) – Bruno Sep 07 '10 at 22:30
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1@Bruno The trickypart of autoboxing it that it can give you unexpected NullPointerExceptions. – extraneon Sep 08 '10 at 07:24
Can't be done. An int
is not an object, it's a primitive type. You can cast it to Integer, then get the int.
Integer i = (Integer) o; // throws ClassCastException if o.getClass() != Integer.class
int num = i; //Java 1.5 or higher

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This assumes that the object is an integer which it almost certainly is not. Probably want's the string solution ala Coronauts – Bill K Sep 07 '10 at 18:20
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How could it compile when you are casting an object into Object and then trying to set it to an Integer variable. – Carlos Sep 08 '10 at 12:48
If the Object
was originally been instantiated as an Integer
, then you can downcast it to an int
using the cast operator (Subtype)
.
Object object = new Integer(10);
int i = (Integer) object;
Note that this only works when you're using at least Java 1.5 with autoboxing feature, otherwise you have to declare i
as Integer
instead and then call intValue()
on it.
But if it initially wasn't created as an Integer
at all, then you can't downcast like that. It would result in a ClassCastException
with the original classname in the message. If the object's toString()
representation as obtained by String#valueOf()
denotes a syntactically valid integer number (e.g. digits only, if necessary with a minus sign in front), then you can use Integer#valueOf()
or new Integer()
for this.
Object object = "10";
int i = Integer.valueOf(String.valueOf(object));
See also:

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int i = (Integer) object; //Type is Integer.
int i = Integer.parseInt((String)object); //Type is String.

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int[] getAdminIDList(String tableName, String attributeName, int value) throws SQLException {
ArrayList list = null;
Statement statement = conn.createStatement();
ResultSet result = statement.executeQuery("SELECT admin_id FROM " + tableName + " WHERE " + attributeName + "='" + value + "'");
while (result.next()) {
list.add(result.getInt(1));
}
statement.close();
int id[] = new int[list.size()];
for (int i = 0; i < id.length; i++) {
try {
id[i] = ((Integer) list.get(i)).intValue();
} catch(NullPointerException ne) {
} catch(ClassCastException ch) {}
}
return id;
}
// enter code here
This code shows why ArrayList
is important and why we use it. Simply casting int
from Object
. May be its helpful.

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If you mean cast a String to int, use Integer.valueOf("123")
.
You can't cast most other Objects to int though, because they wont have an int value. E.g. an XmlDocument has no int value.

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1Don't use `Integer.valueOf("123")` if all you need is a primitive instead use `Integer.parseInt("123")` because **valueOf** method causes an unnecessary unboxing. – Kerem Baydoğan Sep 07 '10 at 18:32
I guess you're wondering why C or C++ lets you manipulate an object pointer like a number, but you can't manipulate an object reference in Java the same way.
Object references in Java aren't like pointers in C or C++... Pointers basically are integers and you can manipulate them like any other int. References are intentionally a more concrete abstraction and cannot be manipulated the way pointers can.

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Refer This code:
public class sample
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Object obj=new Object();
int a=10,b=0;
obj=a;
b=(int)obj;
System.out.println("Object="+obj+"\nB="+b);
}
}

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so divide1=me.getValue()/2;
int divide1 = (Integer) me.getValue()/2;

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This shows a situation where the casting is required and I will add the error as well that actually shows up with this situation. Its hard for a new coder to figure out the actual implementation if there is no example. I hope this example helps them – Nehal Pawar Jan 28 '19 at 22:39
We could cast an object to Integer in Java using below code.
int value = Integer.parseInt(object.toString());

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If you want to convert string-object into integer... you can simply pass as:
int id = Integer.valueOf((String) object_name);
Hope this will be helpful :-)

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Integer x = 11
int y = x.intValue();
System.out.println("int value"+ y);
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2This just repeats the solution from multiple other answers without adding anything new. – Blastfurnace Feb 27 '23 at 02:25
Finally, the best implementation for your specification was found.
public int tellMyNumber(Object any) {
return 42;
}

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first check with instanceof keyword . if true then cast it.

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I used this and now im wondering how to solve the 'Boxed value is unboxed then immeditaley reboxed' on that line. (Due to spotbugs checks) so now i'm wondering how to solve it better. – Jasper Lankhorst Jul 01 '19 at 07:29