Multidimensional arrays and arrays of arrays

Hello
How can I distinguish if an array is multidimensional of if it just
contains an array? Or put it another way how can I tell at runtime
whether a/b in the example below is an array containing an array, or
if it is a multidimensional array.
If I know beforehand exactly which type it is, I can use instanceof
(see example), but I don't (especially the number of dimensions, I
don't know).
Else I can call getClass().getName() on the object and see if it
starts with "[[" (pretty ugly IMHO).
Is there another, cleaner method to do this?

public static void main(String[] args) {
Object[] a = new Object[1];
a[0] = new float[12];

Object b = new float[1][12];

if(a instanceof float[][]){
System.out.println("a is float[][]");
}
if(b instanceof float[][]){
System.out.println("b is float[][]");
}
}

prints "b is float[][]" (but not for a) as expected.

Phil
.

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