Re: unchecked call to compareTo(T)

From:
"Mark" <mnbayazit@gmail.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
6 Nov 2006 23:27:27 -0800
Message-ID:
<1162884447.459873.22840@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>
Hendrik Maryns wrote:

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Mark schreef:

Writing it as follows seems to fix the problem

class BST<T extends Comparable<? super T>>
{
    class Node
    {
        T obj = null;
        Node left = null, right = null;

        Node(T obj) {
            this.obj = obj;
        }
    }
      ...

But now I'm having trouble declaring a new BST. I get the errors...

BST.java:196: unexpected type
found : int
required: reference
        BST<int> tree = new BST<int>();
                    ^
BST.java:196: unexpected type
found : int
required: reference
        BST<int> tree = new BST<int>();
                                        ^
2 errors

Terminated with exit code 1.


I'm not sure what it means...it expects a reference? Why won't it
accept "int"?


int is a primitive type, it does not implement anything, so most
certainly not Comparable. The moment you generified BST, you demanded
its objects to implement Comparable. Anyway, there is not way to store
an int in a collection, so you want to use Integer anyway.

It seems to accept Integer though...why is that?


Because Integer implements Comparable<Integer>.

To answer your other post:

Could someone explain what the <? super T> part means?


Comparable itself is generic. This means you have to give it a
parameter, hence the errors didn't disappear at your first try, since
you just declared BST<T extends Comparable>.

Now why the super T? Often, a class SuperClass will declare it
implements Comparable. Most often, it will be comparable with itself,
so it will implement Comparable<SuperClass>. (E.g. look at the
definition of Integer.) However, if subclasses of this class are made,
they, too, implement Comparable<SuperClass>. You cannot redefine them
to implement Comparable<SubClass>, the compiler won't let you. But you
do want to accept these classes in BST. That's where the super comes
in: it tells the compiler that a class should be comparable to itself or
to some class higher up in the hierarchy.

HTH,H.
- --
Hendrik Maryns
http://tcl.sfs.uni-tuebingen.de/~hendrik/
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ah... thank you.

I found the integer definition, it says

public final class Integer
extends Number
implements Comparable

not Comparable<Integer>, .. actually.. I guess those doc's are outdated
now (1.4.2)
generics were introduced in 1.5 or something, weren't they?

anyways, that makes much more sense now.

the broad statement "everything is derived from Object" led me to
believe that even int's were.. and if they were derived from objects, I
figured they might implement Comparable as well, but I guess I was
wrong. (or are they still considered Objects?)

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