Grails/Groovy domain classes inheritance cast

Question

I have modeled my domain classes in Grails with inheritance as shown below.

abstract class Profile{
}

class Team extends Profile{
}

class User extends Profile{
}

class B{
    static hasMany = [profiles: Profile]
}

Later in the controllers when I get all profiles from the class B in some situations I'd like to cast some of the profiles to Team or to User, but I can't because I get a java.lang.ClassCastException or GroovyCastException, although they are saved as a Team or User (with the attribute class in the database). Here are the ways I have tried:

def team1 = b.profiles.toList()[0] as Team

def team1 = (Team)b.profiles.toList()[0]

It is working when I don't write any type just use it as it is normal in a dynamic language.

def team1 = b.profiles.toList()[0]

But then I never know which class I am using. Is there anyway in groovy or gorm to cast the parent class to child?

Answer 1

The answer is No as a real GORM/Hibernate instance is a proxied object. So it cannot be cast to an entity class directly.

Anyway this might help:

def team1 = b.profiles.toList()[0]
if(team1.instanceOf(Team)) {
    // I am an instance of Team
    // do something here.
}