Java, A Beginner's Guide, 5th Edition, 5th Edition

Generic Methods

As the preceding examples have shown, methods inside a generic class can make use of a class’ type parameter and are, therefore, automatically generic relative to the type parameter. However, it is possible to declare a generic method that uses one or more type parameters of its own. Furthermore, it is possible to create a generic method that is enclosed within a nongeneric class.

The following program declares a nongeneric class called GenericMethodDemo and a static generic method within that class called arraysEqual( ). This method determines if two arrays contain the same elements, in the same order. It can be used to compare any two arrays as long as the arrays are of the same or compatible types.

The output from the program ...