Generic ConstructorsS2C Home « Generic Constructors

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We have seen several examples of generic constructors so far in this section and these were all contained within generic classes. It is also possible to have generic constructors inside non-generic classes.

Following is a non-generic class that contains a generic constructor. Notice where we declare the bounded type, when declaring a generic constructor in a non-generic class then we have to declare the generic type before the constructor name:

package com.server2client;

/*
  Non-generic class containing a generic constructor
*/
public class CubeNumber { 
    private final int cubedNumber;
    
    // Pass bounded type to our constructor
    public <T extends Number> CubeNumber(T number) {
        cubedNumber = number.intValue() * number.intValue() * number.intValue(); 
    }

    // getter for cubed number
    public int getNumber() {
        return cubedNumber;
    }
}

Building the CubeNumber class produces the following output:

Now we need to write a test class to show how we can pass various Number objects to our CubeNumber class:

package com.server2client;

/*
  Test our CubeNumber class that accepts Number and subclasses for its constructor
*/
public class TestCubeNumber {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Test the CubeNumber using an Integer object
        CubeNumber integerObj = new CubeNumber(12);
        System.out.println("Input cubed = " + integerObj.getNumber());
        
        // Test the CubeNumber using a Double object
        CubeNumber doubleObj = new CubeNumber(13.45);
        System.out.println("Input cubed = " + doubleObj.getNumber());

        // Test the CubeNumber using a String object
        CubeNumber StringObj = new CubeNumber("foobar");
        System.out.println("Input cubed = " + StringObj.getNumber());
    }
}

Building the TestCubeNumber class produces the following output:

The build failed as expected as the String object does not extend the Number object.

Remove the comment and last 2 lines of code from the main() method of the TestCubeNumber class as shown below.

package com.server2client;

/*
  Test our CubeNumber class that accepts Number and subclasses for its constructor
*/
public class TestCubeNumber {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Test the CubeNumber using an Integer object
        CubeNumber integerObj = new CubeNumber(12);
        System.out.println("Input cubed = " + integerObj.getNumber());
        
        // Test the CubeNumber using a Double object
        CubeNumber doubleObj = new CubeNumber(13.45);
        System.out.println("Input cubed = " + doubleObj.getNumber());
    }
}

Running the amended TestCubeNumber class produces the following output:

As the screenshot shows the method now works fine and will only accept Number objects and subclasses thereof.

Related Quiz

Generics Quiz 10 - Generic Constructors Quiz

Lesson 10 Complete

In this lesson we looked at generic constructors and how to use them.

What's Next?

That's it for the generics section, the next section is all about Java streams.

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• Streams     >>