Class object of generic class (java)

Question

is there a way in java to get an instance of something like Class> ?

Answer 1

You could use Jackson's ObjectMapper

ObjectMapper objectMapper = new ObjectMapper();
CollectionType listType = objectMapper.getTypeFactory().constructCollectionType(List.class, ElementClass.class)

No unchecked warnings, no empty List instances floating around.

Answer 2

how about

(Class<List<Object>>)(Class<?>)List.class

Answer 3

List.class

the specific type of generics is "erased" at compile time.

Answer 4

public final class ClassUtil {
    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    public static <T> Class<T> castClass(Class<?> aClass) {
        return (Class<T>)aClass;
    }
}

Now you call:

Class<List<Object>> clazz = ClassUtil.<List<Object>>castClass(List.class);

Answer 5

As mentioned in other answers, Class represents an erased type. To represent something like ArrayList<Object>, you want a Type. An easy way of getting that is:

new ArrayList<Object>() {}.getClass().getGenericSuperclass()

The generic type APIs introduced in 1.5 are relatively easy to find your way around.

Answer 6

You can get a class object for the List type using:

Class.forName("java.util.List")

or

List.class

But because java generics are implemented using erasures you cannot get a specialised object for each specific class.