Java Language Tutorial => Using Generics to auto-cast

Example

With generics, it's possible to return whatever the caller expects:

private Map<String, Object> data;
public <T> T get(String key) {
    return (T) data.get(key);
}

The method will compile with a warning. The code is actually more safe than it looks because the Java runtime will do a cast when you use it:

Bar bar = foo.get("bar");

It's less safe when you use generic types:

List<Bar> bars = foo.get("bars");

Here, the cast will work when the returned type is any kind of List (i.e. returning List<String> would not trigger a ClassCastException; you'd eventually get it when taking elements out of the list).

To work around this problem, you can create an API which uses typed keys:

public final static Key<List<Bar>> BARS = new Key<>("BARS");

along with this put() method:

public <T> T put(Key<T> key, T value);

With this approach, you can't put the wrong type into the map, so the result will always be correct (unless you accidentally create two keys with the same name but different types).

Type-safe Map

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Java Language Generics Using Generics to auto-cast

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