Creating parameterized type object using annonymous class
- by Andrei Fierbinteanu
This might be a stupid question, but I just saw a question asking how to create a Type variable for a generic type. The consensus seemed to be that you should have a dummy method returning that type, and then use reflection to get it (in this case he wanted Map<String, String>). Something like this :
public Map<String, String> dummy() { throw new Error(); }
Type mapStringString = Class.forName("ThisClass").getMethod("dummy").getGenericReturnType();
My question is, not having used reflection that much, couldn't you just do something like:
Type mapStringString = new ParameterizedType() {
public Type getRawType() {
return Map.class;
}
public Type getOwnerType() {
return null;
}
public Type[] getActualTypeArguments() {
return new Type[] { String.class, String.class };
}
};
Would this work? If not, why not? And what are some of the dangers/problems if it does (besides being able to return some Type like Integer<String> which is obviously not possible.
