Re: Delegation and generics craziness

From:
Mark Space <markspace@sbc.global.net>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:05:55 -0700
Message-ID:
<x40ok.17440$uE5.1549@flpi144.ffdc.sbc.com>
Steven Simpson wrote:

But 'delegate' only takes B keys - 'A's are too general, and you're
trying to by-pass this restriction. The error is alerting you to this.

You may have to do something similar with V too; I haven't checked.


Yes, I think you do.

(You might be able to use <? super K>, but there are probably other
methods which simultaneously impose <? extends K> or even <K>, so
together they force you to use just <K>.)


I think the basic problem is that for a Map, K and V are both an input
and an output. (You can get the keys out as well as put them in.) And
<? extends X> doesn't work as an output. Semantically, it's just wrong.
  Of course, <? super X> doesn't work as an input, so you're stuck.

The correct type of the delegate might be Map<?,?>, but I'm not
completely sure about that.

Fundamentally, as long as you can prove that only a certain type can go
into the delegate, it might be ok to use the raw type. But this is kind
of a no-no, so the <?,?> form might actually be the best, and equivalent
to the raw type in this instance.

I'm not 100% sure, but that was my quick, gut-level analysis of the problem.

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