Designing constructors around type erasure in Java
- by Internet Friend
Yesterday, I was designing a Java class which I wanted to be initalized with Lists of various generic types:
TheClass(List<String> list) {
...
}
TheClass(List<OtherType> list) {
...
}
This will not compile, as the constructors have the same erasure.
I just went with factory methods differentiated by their names instead:
public static TheClass createWithStrings(List<String> list)
public static TheClass createWithOtherTypes(List<OtherType> list)
This is less than optimal, as there isn't a single obvious location where all the different options for creating instances are available.
I tried to search for better design ideas, but found surprisingly few results. What other patterns exist for designing around this problem?
