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

Here's an implementation of createContents that uses TypeTools to resolve the raw class represented by E:

E createContents() throws Exception {
  return TypeTools.resolveRawArgument(SomeContainer.class, getClass()).newInstance();
}

This approach only works if SomeContainer is subclassed so the actual value of E is captured in a type definition:

class SomeStringContainer extends SomeContainer

Otherwise the value of E is erased at runtime and is not recoverable.