What we are having here is two different methods with individual type parameters each. public abstract <T extends AnotherClass> void getAndParse(Args… args); This is a method with a type parameter named T, and bounded by AnotherClass, meaning each subtype of AnotherClass is allowed as a type parameter. public <SpecificClass> void getAndParse(Args… args) This is a … Read more
‘for backwards compatibility’ seems a sufficient reason for the type erasure of class generic types – it is needed e.g. to allow you to return an untyped List and pass it to some legacy code. The extension of this to generic methods seems like a tricky sub-case. The JLS snippet from 4.8 (which you quote) … Read more
This is actually a legitimate type inference*. We can reduce this to the following example (Ideone): interface Foo { <F extends Foo> F bar(); public static void main(String[] args) { Foo foo = null; String baz = foo.bar(); } } The compiler is allowed to infer a (nonsensical, really) intersection type String & Foo because Foo is … Read more
It’s not exactly what you’d expect, but if you refer to a generic class in raw form, you lose the ability to use generics in any way for instance members. It’s not restricted to generic methods either, check out this: public class MyContainer<T> { public List<String> strings() { return Arrays.asList(“a”, “b”); } } MyContainer container … Read more