Chapter 12. Generic Programming

In this chapter

• Why Generic Programming?

• Defining a Simple Generic Class

• Generic Methods

• Bounds for Type Variables

• Generic Code and the Virtual Machine

• Restrictions and Limitations

• Inheritance Rules for Generic Types

• Wildcard Types

• Reflection and Generics

Generic classes constitute the most significant change in the Java programming language since the 1.0 release. The addition of generics to Java SE 5.0 was the result of one of the first Java Specification Requests, JSR 14, that was formulated in 1999. The expert group spent about five years on specifications and test implementations.

Generic classes are desirable because they let you write code that is safer and easier to read than code littered ...

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