I think I may be a victim of type erasure but thought I'd check with others here first.

I have the requirement to do something like this:

public interface FooFactory {
   public <T extends Bar> Foo<T> createFoo( Class<T> clazz );
}

It is perfectly valid to write this code. However, I'm trying to implement this functionality using a Spring BeanFactory and I can't do it.

What I'd like to do is this...

public class FooFactoryImpl implements BeanFactoryAware {
   private BeanFactory beanFactory;

   public <T extends Bar> Foo<T> createFoo( Class<T> clazz ) {
      return beanFactory.getBean( ????????? );
   }

   public void setBeanFactory( BeanFactory beanFactory ) {
      this.beanFactory = beanFactory; 
   }
}

As you can see, I've put in ???????? where I'd like to retrieve a bean of type Foo<T>, where T extends Bar. However, it is not possible to derive a Class object of type Foo<T> and so I assume what I'm trying to do is impossible?

Anyone else see a way round this or an alternative way of implementing what I'm trying to do?

Thanks,

Andrew