casting Object array to Integer array error

Ross, you can use Arrays.copyof() or Arrays.copyOfRange() too.

Integer[] integerArray = Arrays.copyOf(a, a.length, Integer[].class);
Integer[] integerArray = Arrays.copyOfRange(a, 0, a.length, Integer[].class);

Here the reason to hitting an ClassCastException is you can't treat an array of Integer as an array of Object. Integer[] is a subtype of Object[] but Object[] is not a Integer[].

And the following also will not give an ClassCastException.

Object[] a = new Integer[1];
Integer b=1;
a[0]=b;
Integer[] c = (Integer[]) a;

You can't cast an Object array to an Integer array. You have to loop through all elements of a and cast each one individually.

Object[] a = new Object[1];
Integer b=1;
a[0]=b;
Integer[] c = new Integer[a.length];
for(int i = 0; i < a.length; i++)
{
    c[i] = (Integer) a[i];
}

Edit: I believe the rationale behind this restriction is that when casting, the JVM wants to ensure type-safety at runtime. Since an array of Objects can be anything besides Integers, the JVM would have to do what the above code is doing anyway (look at each element individually). The language designers decided they didn't want the JVM to do that (I'm not sure why, but I'm sure it's a good reason).

However, you can cast a subtype array to a supertype array (e.g. Integer[] to Object[])!