Groovy / grails how to determine a data type?

To determine the class of an object simply call:

someObject.getClass()

You can abbreviate this to someObject.class in most cases. However, if you use this on a Map it will try to retrieve the value with key 'class'. Because of this, I always use getClass() even though it's a little longer.

If you want to check if an object implements a particular interface or extends a particular class (e.g. Date) use:

(somObject instanceof Date)

or to check if the class of an object is exactly a particular class (not a subclass of it), use:

(somObject.getClass() == Date)

Simple groovy way to check object type:

somObject in Date

Can be applied also to interfaces.

Just to add another option to Dónal's answer, you can also still use the good old java.lang.Object.getClass() method.