Difference between revisions of "Generics"
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* Watch out when autoboxing is involved with legacy code. | * Watch out when autoboxing is involved with legacy code. | ||
| − | <syntaxhighlight lang=" | + | <syntaxhighlight lang="java5"> |
List l = new ArrayList(); | List l = new ArrayList(); | ||
l.add(123); //Auto-boxing happens. | l.add(123); //Auto-boxing happens. | ||
Revision as of 04:17, 25 May 2011
- Generics is a way to enforce ONLY compile-time type safety.
- All the type information is not present at run-time. The compiler strips out type information from the bytecode using a process called type erasure.
- WHY Type erasure ? To ensure backward compatibility with legacy code.
- This compile-time safety is broken when generic and non-generic legacy code are mixed up.
- Watch out when autoboxing is involved with legacy code.
List l = new ArrayList();
l.add(123); //Auto-boxing happens.
int i = l.get(0); //Compile-time error. Autounboxing cant work because get() returns Object and not Integer.
