Here is something that gets you part of the way there for the numeric types: If the type string is the fully qualified class name (e.g., java.lang.Float), you can do the following:

Class c = Class.forName(type);
Class[] classArray = {String.class};
Constructor constructor = c.getDeclaredConstructor(classArray);
Object params = {yourString};
Object o = constructor.newInstance(params);

Note that you will still need to cast the object you get, possibly using a switch statement. Note also that I have ignored exception handling.

Unfortunately, this code will not work for java.sql.date, which does not have a constructor which takes a String argument.

Hi,

Java allows you to create objects at runtime using reflections. (check this Forum thread).

Once you have a variable declared as String, you cannot cast it back to another class, unless the class is a superclass of the one you want to use.

Again, check out the javadoc of java.lang.Class and the classes related to the reflections package.