Wildcards - RichardDanielOliva/java-learning-wiki GitHub Wiki

**Wildcards are represented by the question mark in Java “?” **and they are used to refer to an unknown type. Wildcards are particularly useful when using generics and can be used as a parameter type.

Before explain some used cases, there is an important note to consider. It is known that Object is the supertype of all Java classes, however, a collection of Object is not the supertype of any collection.

or example, a List is not the supertype of List and assigning a variable of type List to a variable of type List will cause a compiler error. This is to prevent possible conflicts that can happen if we add heterogeneous types to the same collection.

The Same rule applies to any collection of a type and its subtypes. Consider this example:

public static void paintAllBuildings(List<Building> buildings) {
    buildings.forEach(Building::paint);
}

if we imagine a subtype of Building, for example, a House, we can't use this method with a list of House, even though House is a subtype of Building. If we need to use this method with type Building and all its subtypes, then the bounded wildcard can do the magic:

public static void paintAllBuildings(List<? extends Building> buildings) {
    ...
}

Unbounded Wildcards

The unbounded wildcard type is specified using the wildcard character (?), for example, List<?>. This is called a list of unknown type. There are two scenarios where an unbounded wildcard is a useful approach:

If you are writing a method that can be implemented using functionality provided in the Object class. When the code is using methods in the generic class that don't depend on the type parameter. For example, List.size or List.clear. In fact, Class<?> is so often used because most of the methods in Class do not depend on T. Consider the following method, printList:

public static void printList(List<Object> list) {
    for (Object elem : list)
        System.out.println(elem + " ");
    System.out.println();
}

The goal of printList is to print a list of any type, but it fails to achieve that goal — it prints only a list of Object instances; it cannot print List, List, List, and so on, because they are not subtypes of List. To write a generic printList method, use List<?>:

public static void printList(List<?> list) {
    for (Object elem: list)
        System.out.print(elem + " ");
    System.out.println();
}

Because for any concrete type A, List is a subtype of List<?>, you can use printList to print a list of any type:

List<Integer> li = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3);
List<String>  ls = Arrays.asList("one", "two", "three");
printList(li);
printList(ls);

It's important to note that List and List> are not the same. You can insert an Object, or any subtype of Object, into a List. But you can only insert null into a List>. The Guidelines for Wildcard Use section has more information on how to determine what kind of wildcard, if any, should be used in a given situation.

Upper Bounded Wildcards

You can use an upper bounded wildcard to relax the restrictions on a variable. For example, say you want to write a method that works on List, List, and List; you can achieve this by using an upper bounded wildcard.

To write the method that works on lists of Number and the subtypes of Number, such as Integer, Double, and Float, you would specify List<? extends Number>. The term List is more restrictive than List<? extends Number> because the former matches a list of type Number only, whereas the latter matches a list of type Number or any of its subclasses.

public static double sumOfList(List<? extends Number> list) {
    double s = 0.0;
    for (Number n : list)
        s += n.doubleValue();
    return s;
}

Lower Bounded Wildcards

The Upper Bounded Wildcards section shows that an upper bounded wildcard restricts the unknown type to be a specific type or a subtype of that type and is represented using the extends keyword. In a similar way, a lower bounded wildcard restricts the unknown type to be a specific type or a super type of that type.

A lower bounded wildcard is expressed using the wildcard character ('?'), following by the super keyword, followed by its lower bound: <? super A>.

Note: You can specify an upper bound for a wildcard, or you can specify a lower bound, but you cannot specify both.

Say you want to write a method that puts Integer objects into a list. To maximize flexibility, you would like the method to work on List, List, and List — anything that can hold Integer values.

To write the method that works on lists of Integer and the supertypes of Integer, such as Integer, Number, and Object, you would specify List<? super Integer>. The term List is more restrictive than List<? super Integer> because the former matches a list of type Integer only, whereas the latter matches a list of any type that is a supertype of Integer.

The following code adds the numbers 1 through 10 to the end of a list:

public static void addNumbers(List<? super Integer> list) {
    for (int i = 1; i <= 10; i++) {
        list.add(i);
    }
}

Guidelines for Wildcard Use

One of the more confusing aspects when learning to program with generics is determining when to use an upper bounded wildcard and when to use a lower bounded wildcard. This page provides some guidelines to follow when designing your code.

For purposes of this discussion, it is helpful to think of variables as providing one of two functions:

An "In" Variable

An "in" variable serves up data to the code. Imagine a copy method with two arguments: copy(src, dest). The src argument provides the data to be copied, so it is the "in" parameter.

An "Out" Variable

An "out" variable holds data for use elsewhere. In the copy example, copy(src, dest), the dest argument accepts data, so it is the "out" parameter. Of course, some variables are used both for "in" and "out" purposes — this scenario is also addressed in the guidelines.

You can use the "in" and "out" principle when deciding whether to use a wildcard and what type of wildcard is appropriate. The following list provides the guidelines to follow:

Wildcard Guidelines:

  • An "in" variable is defined with an upper bounded wildcard, using the extends keyword.
  • An "out" variable is defined with a lower bounded wildcard, using the super keyword.
  • In the case where the "in" variable can be accessed using methods defined in the Object class, use an unbounded wildcard.
  • In the case where the code needs to access the variable as both an "in" and an "out" variable, do not use a wildcard.

These guidelines do not apply to a method's return type. Using a wildcard as a return type should be avoided because it forces programmers using the code to deal with wildcards.

A list defined by List<? extends ...> can be informally thought of as read-only, but that is not a strict guarantee. Suppose you have the following two classes:

class NaturalNumber {

    private int i;

    public NaturalNumber(int i) { this.i = i; }
    // ...
}
class EvenNumber extends NaturalNumber {

    public EvenNumber(int i) { super(i); }
    // ...
}

Consider the following code:

List<EvenNumber> le = new ArrayList<>();
List<? extends NaturalNumber> ln = le;
ln.add(new NaturalNumber(35));  // compile-time error

Because List is a subtype of List<? extends NaturalNumber>, you can assign le to ln. But you cannot use ln to add a natural number to a list of even numbers. The following operations on the list are possible:

  • You can add null.
  • You can invoke clear.
  • You can get the iterator and invoke remove.
  • You can capture the wildcard and write elements that you've read from the list.
  • You can see that the list defined by List<? extends NaturalNumber> is not read-only in the strictest sense of the word, but you might think of it that way because you cannot store a new element or change an existing element in the list.

References

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