Question

I don’t know how to give this a better title as I don’t really know what this pattern is called in Java.

Right now I have a method with this signature:

public Directory getDirectory(Class<? extends Directory> type) { ... }

And you call it like this:

MyDirectory directory = (MyDirectory)getDirectory(MyDirectory.class);

The constraint on the type ensures that MyDirectory must derive from Directory.

What I really want to do is avoid the cast and reduce the amount of code required. In C# you could say:

MyDirectory directory = getDirectory<MyDirectory>();

Is there a way to do this or something similar in Java? I haven’t coded any Java since version 1.4!

Answer 1

public <T extends Directory> T getDirectory(Class<T> type) { ... }

MyDirectory directory = getDirectory(MyDirectory.class);