ClassCastException: java.lang.String cannot be cast to Ljava.lang.String

You can not cast "String" into "Array of Strings".

You can only put a string into a slot within an array.

What you can do is:

    String theString = "whatever";
    String[] myStrings = { theString };

Cause: element at "i" position is of type string. However you are trying to cast it into array of string.

Direct Solution: remove [] from both sides i.e. change from:

String[] test = (String[]) dataList.get(i);

To:

String test = (String) dataList.get(i);

This will work if your List will not contain array of any type.

thankyou Guys. Yeah I am trying to cast a List Objects to String Arrays. I found the issues. Corrected code.

    public void testSearchCountry() throws Exception {
        driver.get("http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page");
        ReadExcelDemo readXls = new ReadExcelDemo();
         List dataList = readXls.getData();
        String[] test = new String[dataList.size()];
         for (int i = 1; i < dataList.size(); i++) {
             String[] testCase = new String[5];
             test[i] = dataList.get(i).toString();
             String countryName = test[0];
             String countryDesc = test[1];
             driver.findElement(By.id("searchInput")).clear();
             driver.findElement(By.id("searchInput")).sendKeys(countryName);
             driver.findElement(By.id("searchButton")).click();
             String str = driver.findElement(
             By.xpath("//h1[@id='firstHeading']/span")).getText();
             System.out.println(countryDesc);
             Assert.assertTrue(str.contains(countryName));
         }
   }

and it worked.

Looking at the code, I believe you trying to convert List to an Array, therefore your "issue line" should be the following:

String[] test = (String[]) dataList.toArray(new String[dataList.size]);