Is it possible to cast "this" to a generic type?

[David Peterson]

Is there any way to avoid the compiler warning: "Type safety: Unchecked cast from AbstractBuilder<T> to T"? (Other than suppressing it.)

public abstract class AbstractBuilder<T extends AbstractBuilder<T>> {
 
protected String name;
 
public T withName(String name) {
this.name = name;
return (T) this;
}
}

[Ajay Singh]

You can try this

 
public T withName(String name, Class<T> clazz) {
   this.name = name;
   return clazz.cast(this);
}

[Petrus Pelser]

An instanceof check may fix the problem.

The compiler complains because, in your example, it is possible for 'this' to be either a subclass (down-casting) of 'T' or any other unrelated class which also extends AbstractBuilder.