Android TabHost Syntax

I'm very new to developing on Android and the Java language in general and I can't seem to find an explanation on why the following statement has "(TabHost)" after the "=":

TabHost tabHost=(TabHost)findViewById(R.id.tabHost);

as opposed to:

TabHost tabHost = getTabHost();

They do the same thing, right? Why use either of them? Also, please e开发者_Python百科xplain the syntax of the first code specifically, please.

Thank you.

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The first case returns a generic View, which is the superclass from which all other views inherit. You have to cast it to a TabHost since Java doesn't know it's supposed to be one. It translates to saying "get me the View with this id, which, by the way, is supposed to be a TabHost".

The second instance is a method that is part of the TabActivity class which specifically returns a TabHost object, so there's no need for casting.