Question

I am wondering why the second map declaration (using the diamond operator) does not compile when the first one does. Compilation error:

error: cannot infer type arguments for HashMap;
Map map2 = new HashMap<>() {
reason: cannot use ‘<>’ with anonymous inner classes
where K,V are type-variables:
K extends Object declared in class HashMap
V extends Object declared in class HashMap

Code:

    Map<String, String> map1 = new HashMap<String, String>() { //compiles fine

        {
            put("abc", "abc");
        }
    };

    Map<String, String> map2 = new HashMap<>() { //does not compile

        {
            put("abc", "abc");
        }
    };

EDIT
Thanks for your answers – I should have read the compilation error better.
I found the exaplanation in the JLS

It is a compile-time error if a class instance creation expression declares an anonymous class using the “<>” form for the class’s type arguments.

Answer 1

You don’t have a static initializer here (the keyword static is missing altogether).

Basically you create a new anonymous subclass of HashMap and define the instance intializer block here. Btw, this only works since HashMap is not final.

Since you’ll get an anonymous subclass of HashMap the diamond operator doesn’t work here, since the subclass would then be compiled as if you wrote ... extends HashMap<Object, Object> and this clearly isn’t compatible to Map<String, String>.