Create instance of generic type in Java?

Question

Is it possible to create an instance of a generic type in Java? I\'m thinking based on what I\'ve seen that the answer is no (due to type erasure), but

Answer 1

I thought I could do that, but quite disappointed: it doesn't work, but I think it still worths sharing.

Maybe someone can correct:

import java.lang.reflect.InvocationHandler;
import java.lang.reflect.Method;
import java.lang.reflect.Proxy;

interface SomeContainer {
    E createContents();
}

public class Main {

    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    public static  SomeContainer createSomeContainer() {
        return (SomeContainer) Proxy.newProxyInstance(Main.class.getClassLoader(),
                new Class[]{ SomeContainer.class }, new InvocationHandler() {
            @Override
            public Object invoke(Object proxy, Method method, Object[] args) throws Throwable {
                Class returnType = method.getReturnType();
                return returnType.newInstance();
            }
        });
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SomeContainer container = createSomeContainer();

    [*] System.out.println("String created: [" +container.createContents()+"]");

    }
}

It produces:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ClassCastException: java.lang.Object cannot be cast to java.lang.String
    at Main.main(Main.java:26)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:601)
    at com.intellij.rt.execution.application.AppMain.main(AppMain.java:120)

Line 26 is the one with the [*].

The only viable solution is the one by @JustinRudd