Compilation Fails at Line 2.

[Punya Pratap Singh]

Hi All ,

Why is, Line 2 giving compilation Error--can not convert List<String> to List<Object>
although List<Object> is super Type ?
Please Explalin.


List<String> list1 = new ArrayList<String>();//line 1
List<Object> list2 = list1;//line 2

Thanks.

[Christophe Verré]

Imagine that List<Object> can contain any Object. What would happen if you could assign it a List<String>, which can only contain String. Would you be able to add Integer objects into it ? No.

[Punya Pratap Singh]

Then What is happening here,as we are assigning ArrayList<Gum>
to List Type and It is not giving any type of Error;

class Gum{}

public class TestCollection {
public static void main(String[] args) {
List<Gum> list1 = new ArrayList<Gum>();
list1.add(new Gum());
List list2 = list1; //1
list2.add(new Gum()); //2
list2.add(new Integer(9)); //3
list2.add("XYZ"); //4
System.out.println(list2.size());
}}

[Punya Pratap Singh]

List<Gum> list1 = new ArrayList<Gum>();

if You cahnge this line with String Type Result is same Why Is It?

Please Expalin.

Thanks.

[Christophe Verré]

List list2 : This list is not a generic list, so anything can go in there.

[Seetharaman Venkatasamy]

Punya, Generics are invariant, not a covariant.

[Punya Pratap Singh]

Thanks For Reply..Christophe Verré

But I am wondering ,then what is happening at this line..
In what way this assignment is affecting the left hand side variable.

List list2 = list1;

Thanks.

[Christophe Verré]

List l2 is a list of anything. You can assign it any type class implementing List. Moreover, this list is not generic (it has not the List<...> notation). So it can also be assigned to any kind of generic list. It's not affecting it in any particular way. It's a good old non-generic list which was used before Java5.

[Punya Pratap Singh]

Mr. Venkatasamy Thanks

[Seetharaman Venkatasamy]

Christophe Verré wrote:List l2 is a list of anything.

More expressive

Punya Pratap Singh wrote:Mr. Venkatasamy Thanks

you are welcome

[Punya Pratap Singh]

Thanks a lot Christophe

[Rob Spoor]

You'll get a compiler warning about that line because it is dangerous. Your example has already shown that you now have an Integer in your List<Gum>. When you now try to iterate over it you will get a ClassCastException.