No, there’s no built-in way to convert a class like you say. The simplest way to do this would be to do what you suggested: create a DerivedClass(BaseClass) constructor. Other options would basically come out to automate the copying of properties from the base to the derived instance, e.g. using reflection. The code you posted … Read more
Upcasting is casting to a supertype, while downcasting is casting to a subtype. Upcasting is always allowed, but downcasting involves a type check and can throw a ClassCastException. In your case, a cast from a Dog to an Animal is an upcast, because a Dog is-a Animal. In general, you can upcast whenever there is … Read more
Try [myObject class] for returning the class of an object. You can make exact comparisons with: if ([myObject class] == [MyClass class]) but not by using directly MyClass identifier. Similarily, you can find if the object is of a subclass of your class with: if ([myObject isKindOfClass:[AnObject class]]) as suggested by Jon Skeet and zoul.