Question

I have a method.
It accepts a param, it can either be an object of the Provider or String class.
Now if I tell that method to accept Object then I can pass it Provider or String object, but I want to make it type safe using generics and pass only either Provider or String. How do I do that, is it possible?
I want to achieve something like this:

public <T can be String or Provider> void myMethod(T value)

I had a look at this question, but it would not work in my case because none of Provider or String is an interface.

Answer 1

You should not (and can not) use generics for this. Instead simply provide two overloaded method:

public void myMethod(String value);
// and
public void myMethod(Provider value);

Since both need to have some different handling anyway it’s actually simpler this way.