How to have variables with dynamic data types in Java?

Posted by Nazgulled on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Nazgulled
Published on 2010-05-21T12:41:48Z Indexed on 2010/05/21 15:01 UTC
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Hi,

I need to have a UserProfile class that it's just that, a user profile. This user profile has some vital user data of course, but it also needs to have lists of messages sent from the user friends.

I need to save these messages in LinkedList, ArrayList, HashMap and TreeMap. But only one at a time and not duplicate the message for each data structure. Basically, something like a dynamic variable type where I could pick the data type for the messages.

Is this, somehow, possible in Java? Or my best approach is something like this? I mean, have 2 different classes (for the user profile), one where I host the messages as Map<K,V> (and then I use HashMap and TreeMap where appropriately) and another class where I host them as List<E> (and then I use LinkedList and ArrayList where appropriately). And probably use a super class for the UserProfile so I don't have to duplicate variables and methods for fields like data, age, address, etc...

Any thoughts?

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