Just came across a statement public void takeList(List<? extends String) list {}

[Vishal Hegde]

Just came across a statement public void takeList(List<? extends String) list {} what does the ? mean in here

[Maneesh Godbole]

It means the List will accept any element which subclasses String.
More on generics wildcards here http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/extra/generics/wildcards.html
But remember, can one subclass String?

[Vishal Hegde]

Maneesh Godbole wrote:It means the List will accept any element which subclasses String.
More on generics wildcards here http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/extra/generics/wildcards.html
But remember, can one subclass String?

Thankyou with respect to this question i want to know why


list.add("Foo") when added within the method wont compile

[Campbell Ritchie]

I don't think you can add to anything taking <?....> as an actual type parameter.

[Henry Wong]

Maneesh Godbole wrote:It means the List will accept any element which subclasses String.
More on generics wildcards here http://download.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/extra/generics/wildcards.html
But remember, can one subclass String?

Just trying to be precise, so feel free to ignore. It is the method will take any List that accepts a particular type that is string or subclasses string. It is not the list that accepts any type, the list accepts a specific type.

Now, of course, this example is somewhat silly. Since the String class is final, there are no classes that subclasses string; And the compiler is not smart enough to flag this.

Henry

[Rob Spoor]

Campbell Ritchie wrote:I don't think you can add to anything taking <?....> as an actual type parameter.

With <? super X> you can add anything that IS-A X. With <? extends X> you can only add null.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Thank you for sorting that out Rob. You can only add null to a Collection<? extends Foo>.

[Mike Simmons]

Henry Wong wrote:Now, of course, this example is somewhat silly.

Somewhat. I think they may be intentionally using the <? extends X> idiom to signal that the list is not intended to be modified, only read. This discourages (though it does not necessarily prevent) people from modifying the List. Not very elegant, but some people do use it this way.