Generic factory of generic containers
- by Feuermurmel
I have a generic abstract class Factory<T> with a method createBoxedInstance() which returns instances of T created by implementations of createInstance() wrapped in the generic container Box<T>.
abstract class Factory<T> {
abstract T createInstance();
public final Box<T> createBoxedInstance() {
return new Box<T>(createInstance());
}
public final class Box<T> {
public final T content;
public Box(T content) {
this.content = content;
}
}
}
At some points I need a container of type Box<S> where S is an ancestor of T. Is it possible to make createBoxedInstance() itself generic so that it will return instances of Box<S> where S is chosen by the caller? Sadly, defining the function as follows does not work as a type parameter cannot be declared using the super keyword, only used.
public final <S super T> Box<S> createBoxedInstance() {
return new Box<S>(createInstance());
}
The only alternative I see, is to make all places that need an instance of Box<S> accept Box<? extends S> which makes the container's content member assignable to S.
Is there some way around this without re-boxing the instances of T into containers of type Box<S>? (I know I could just cast the Box<T> to a Box<S> but I would feel very, very guilty.)
