Re: Generics: how to read actual type parameters

From:

Daniel Pitts <googlegroupie@coloraura.com>

Newsgroups:

comp.lang.java.programmer

Date:

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 03:48:36 -0000

Message-ID:

<1191210516.078217.106670@50g2000hsm.googlegroups.com>

On Sep 30, 1:24 pm, Lew <l...@lewscanon.com> wrote:

Joshua Cranmer wrote:

marek.du...@gmail.com wrote:

For example:

public class Pair<S> {
    public String toString() {
        Class clas = ??? ;
        return "Pair of " + clas.toString();
    }
    public S first;
    public S second;
}

1. Don't use tabs in Usenet posts.
2. What you are probably intending to do is impossible as specified.
There is no possible way at runtime to get the class of S. Java erases
the types of the parameters at runtime.
3. Class is generic. Use Class<?> instead.

The easiest thing you can do is:
Class<?> clas = first.getClass();

A potentially tighter bound is:
Class<?> left = first.getClass();
Class<?> right = second.getClass();
Class<?> clas = left;

while (!clas.isAssignableFrom(right))
clas = clas.getSuperclass();

(This returns the last common ancestor of the classes of first and second)

Another hack in a class you own is to have a Class<?> instance variable to
provide runtime type information.

And here's a recent article I just googled up that delves into the issue (GIYF):
<http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread 8860>

--
Lew

Also, since Class is generified, you can do something like this:

class Pair<E> {
   E first;
   E second;
   Class<E> type;

   public Pair(Class<E> type) {
      this.type = type;
   }

   public String toString() {
       return "A pair of " + type.getName() + " objects: <" + first +
", " + second ">";
   }
}

Although, I have to say its been my experience that toString is only
very useful for debug messages, and not for any real textual output
intended for the end user (in most cases). Especially a toString that
gathers runtime information "automagically".