How can I pass a Class as parameter and return a generic collection in Java?

Question

I am designing a simple Data Access Object for my Java application. I have a few classes (records) that represents a single row in tables like User and Fruit.

I would like to have a single method for getting all records of a specific type.

For the moment I have it like this:

public List<User> getAllUsers() {
 ...
}

public List<Fruit> getAllFruits() {
 ...
}

....

But I would like to have a single polymorphic method like this (wrong):

public List<T> getAllRecords(Class<T> type) {
    if(type instanceof User) {
        // Use JDBC and SQL SELECT * FROM user
    } else if(type instanceof Fruit) {
        // Use JDBC and SQL SELECT * FROM fruit
    }
    return collection;
}

Example for uses:

List<Fruit> fruits = myDataAccessObject.getAllRecrods(Fruit.class);
List<User> users = myDataAccessObject.getAllRecords(User.class);

How can I do this in Java?

Answer 1

It looks like you want to adapt what Josh Bloch calls a Typesafe Heterogenous Container pattern: you are passing a type token Class<T>, and you want back a List<T>.

Plain old THC can map a Class<T> to a T in a typesafe manner, but since you actually want a List<T> instead, then you want to use what Neal Gafter calls the super type tokens.

The following snippet is adapted from Crazy Bob Lee's code posted in Neal Gafter's blog:

public abstract class TypeReference<T> {
    private final Type type;

    protected TypeReference() {
        Type superclass = getClass().getGenericSuperclass();
        if (superclass instanceof Class<?>) {
            throw new RuntimeException("Missing type parameter.");
        }
        this.type = ((ParameterizedType) superclass).getActualTypeArguments()[0];
    }
    public Type getType() {
        return this.type;
    }
}

Now you can create a super type token like these:

    TypeReference<String> stringTypeRef =
            new TypeReference<String>(){};

    TypeReference<Integer> integerTypeRef =
            new TypeReference<Integer>(){};

    TypeReference<List<Boolean>> listBoolTypeRef =
            new TypeReference<List<Boolean>>(){};

Essentially you pass a TypeReference<T> instead of a Class<T>. The difference is that there is no List<String>.class, but you can make a TypeReference<List<String>>.

So now we can make our container as follows (the following is adapted from Josh Bloch's original code):

public class Favorites {
    private Map<Type, Object> favorites =
        new HashMap<Type, Object>();

    public <T> void setFavorite(TypeReference<T> ref, T thing) {
        favorites.put(ref.getType(), thing);
    }
    public <T> T getFavorite(TypeReference<T> ref) {
        @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
        T ret = (T) favorites.get(ref.getType());
        return ret;
    }
}

Now we can put the two together:

    Favorites f = new Favorites();
    f.setFavorite(stringTypeRef, "Java");
    f.setFavorite(integerTypeRef, 42);
    f.setFavorite(listBoolTypeRef, Arrays.asList(true, true));

    String s = f.getFavorite(stringTypeRef);
    int i = f.getFavorite(integerTypeRef);
    List<Boolean> list = f.getFavorite(listBoolTypeRef);

    System.out.println(s);    // "Java"
    System.out.println(i);    // "42"
    System.out.println(list); // "[true, true]"

Neal Gafter argued in his blog that with some more bells and whistles, TypeReference for super type tokens will make a worthy inclusion in the JDK.

Attachments

• Complete source code on ideone.com

References

• Neal Gafter's Blog - Super Type Tokens