Java Generics and Collections

Chapter 1. Generics and collections work well with a number of other new features introduced in the latest versions of Java, including boxing and unboxing, a new form of loop, and functions that accept a variable number of argument...

Chapter 2. Subtyping and Wildcards Now that we've covered the basics, we can start to cover more-advanced features of generics, such as subtyping and wildcards. In this section, we'll review how subtyping works and we'll see how wildc...

Chapter 3. Comparison and Bounds Now that we have the basics, let's look at some more-advanced uses of generics. This chapter describes the interfaces Comparablelt;Tgt; and Comparatorlt;Tgt;, which are used to support comparison on el...

Chapter 4. Declarations This chapter discusses how to declare a generic class. It describes constructors, static members, and nested classes, and it fills in some details of how erasure works. The CHM file was converted...

Chapter 5. Evolution, Not Revolution One motto underpinning the design of generics for Java is evolution, not revolution. It must be possible to migrate a large, existing body of code to use generics gradually (evolution) without...

Chapter 6. Reification The Oxford English Dictionary defines reify thus: "To convert mentally into a thing; to materialize." A plainer word with the same meaning is thingify. In computing, reification has come to mean an explicit repres...

Chapter 7. Reflection Reflection is the term for a set of features that allows a program to examine its own definition. Reflection in Java plays a role in class browsers, object inspectors, debuggers, interpreters, services such a...

Chapter 8. Effective Generics This chapter contains advice on how to use generics effectively in practical coding. We consider checked collections, security issues, specialized classes, and binary compatibility. The title of this sect...

Chapter 9. Design Patterns This chapter reviews five well-known design patternsVisitor, Interpreter, Function, Strategy, and Subject-Observerand shows how they can take advantage of generics. The Function pattern generalizes t...

Chapter 10. The Main Interfaces of the Java Collections Framework Figure 10.1 shows the main interfaces of the Java Collections Framework, together with one otherIterablewhich is outside the Framework but is an essential adjunct...

Chapter 11. Preliminaries In this chapter, we will take time to discuss the concepts underlying the framework, before we get into the detail of the collections themselves. The CHM file was converted to HTM by Trial version...

Chapter 12. The Collection Interface The interface Collection (see Figure 12.1) defines the core functionality that we expect of any collection other than a map. It provides methods in four groups. Figure 12-1. Collection Addin...

Chapter 13. Sets A set is a collection of items that cannot contain duplicates; adding an item if it is already present in the set has no effect. The Set interface has the same methods as those of Collection, but it is defined...

Chapter 14. Queues A queue is a collection designed to hold elements for processing, yielding them up in the order in which they are to be processed. The corresponding Collections Framework interface Queue (see Figure 14.1) has a nu...

Chapter 15. Lists Lists are probably the most widely used Java collections in practice. A list is a collection whichunlike a setcan contain duplicates, and whichunlike a queuegives the user full visibility and control over the ordering...

Chapter 16. Maps The Map interface is the last of the major Collections Framework interfaces, and the only one that does not inherit from Collection. It defines the operations that are supported by a set of key-to-value associ...

Chapter 17. The Collections Class The class java.util.Collections consists entirely of static methods that operate on or return collections. There are three main categories: generic algorithms, methods that return empty or prepopulate...