Java: Class Cast exception...strange outcome

[Kernel_Mustard]

so i was getting a class cast exception in part of my code (using Java 2 sdk 1.4.1). i added an exception handler and the following is the section of the code:

Object obj = _secondVector.get(i);
try{
Integer y = (Integer)obj;
_firstVector.set(y.intValue(), "<<<remove>>>");
}catch(ClassCastException e){
System.err.println("Cast Error Caught (change)");
System.err.println("Class is really: " + obj.getClass().getName());
e.printStackTrace();
}

_secondVector is simply of the Vector class. this, i thought returned an Object. However, the exception handler prints out:

Cast Error Caught (change)
Class is really: java.lang.String

can anyone shed some light on why obj is a String instead of an Object?

******edit******
i tried changing the line:

Integer y = (Integer)obj;

to:

Integer y = new Integer(obj);

Because it said that obj was actually a String and there is an Integer constructor with String as the argument, but i get:

cannot resolve symbol
symbol : constructor Integer (java.lang.Object)
location: class java.lang.Integer
Integer y = new Integer(obj);

So now it's telling me that obj is an object, and before that it was a string......?????

[shmoove]

A String is an Object too (well, everything except the primitive types is an Object in Java).

To use the Integer constructor that takes a String to need to cast the Object into a String:

Integer y = new Integer((String)obj);

Or, assuming that the Object is a String with a numeric value, it would be slightly more effective:

int y = Integer.parseInt((String)obj);

shmoove