Generics in Java - There Is No Spoon
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In the movie The Matrix,* the hero Neo is offered a choice. Take the blue pill and remain in the world of fantasy or take the red pill and see things as they really are. In dealing with generics in Java, we are faced with a similar ontological dilemma. We can go only so far in any discussion of generics before we are forced to confront the reality of how they are implemented. Our fantasy world is one created by the compiler to make our lives writing code easier to accept. Our reality (though not quite the dystopian nightmare in the movie) is a harsher place, filled with unseen dangers and questions. Why don't casts and tests work properly with generics? Why can't I implement what appear to be two different generic interfaces in one class? Why is it that I can declare an array of generic types, even though there is no way in Java to create such an array?!? We'll answer these questions and more in this chapter, and you won't even have to wait for the sequel. Let's get started.
The design goals for Java generics were formidable: add a radical new syntax to the language that introduces parameterized types, safely, with no impact on performance and, oh, by the way, make it backward-compatible with all existing Java code and don't change the compiled classes in any serious way. It's actually fairly amazing that these conditions could be satisfied at all and no surprise that it took a while. But as always, the compromises lead to some headaches.
To accomplish this feat, Java employs a technique called erasure, which relates to the idea that since most everything we do with generics applies statically, at compile time, generic information does not really have to be carried over into the compiled classes. The generic nature of the classes, enforced by the compiler, can be "erased" in the compiled classes, allowing us to maintain compatibility with nongeneric code. While Java does retain information about the generic features of classes in the compiled form, this information is used mainly by the compiler. The Java runtime does not actually know anything about generics at all.
Next: Erasure >>
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 This article was excerpted from chapter eight of the book Learning Java, third edition, written by Patrick Niemeyer and Jonathan Knudsen (O'Reilly; ISBN: 0596008732). Check it out today at your favorite bookstore. Buy this book now.
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