Can we instantiate an abstract class directly? [duplicate]

Question

I have read we can only instantiate an abstract class by inheriting it, but we cannot instantiate it directly.
However, I saw we can create an object with the type of an abstract class by calling a method of another class.
For example - LocationProvider is an abstract class, and we can instantiate it by calling getProvider() function in the LocationManager class:

LocationManager lm = getSystemService(Context.LOCATION_PROVIDER); LocationProvider lp = lm.getProvider("gps"); 

How is the abstract class instantiate here?

Answer 1

You can't directly instantiate an abstract class, but you can create an anonymous class when there is no concrete class:

public class AbstractTest {     public static void main(final String... args) {         final Printer p = new Printer() {             void printSomethingOther() {                 System.out.println("other");             }             @Override             public void print() {                 super.print();                 System.out.println("world");                 printSomethingOther(); // works fine             }         };         p.print();         //p.printSomethingOther(); // does not work     } }  abstract class Printer {     public void print() {         System.out.println("hello");     } } 

This works with interfaces, too.