This generic abstract class is used for obtaining full generics type information
by sub-classing; it must be converted to
ResolvedType
implementation
(implemented by
JavaType
from "databind" bundle) to be used.
Class is based on ideas from
http://gafter.blogspot.com/2006/12/super-type-tokens.html,
Additional idea (from a suggestion made in comments of the article)
is to require bogus implementation of
Comparable
(any such generic interface would do, as long as it forces a method
with generic type to be implemented).
to ensure that a Type argument is indeed given.
Usage is by sub-classing: here is one way to instantiate reference
to generic type List<Integer>
:
TypeReference ref = new TypeReference<List<Integer>>() { };
which can be passed to methods that accept TypeReference, or resolved
using
TypeFactory
to obtain
ResolvedType
.