What is the principle of Java generic erasure

1. Description

During the compilation process, the information of type variables can be obtained. Therefore, the set method can be type checked in the compiler, and illegal types cannot be compiled. But for the get method, due to the erasure mechanism, the actual reference type during operation is the Object type.

In order to restore the type of the returned result, the compiler adds type conversion after get. Therefore, there is type conversion logic on line 18 of the main method body of the genericHolder.class file. This is added automatically by the compiler.

So we dealt with the read and write locations of generic objects and added restrictions to the code.

2. Example

//GenericHolder.java
public class GenericHolder<T> {
    T obj;
    public T getObj() {
        return obj;
    }
    public void setObj(T obj) {
        this.obj = obj;
    }
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        GenericHolder<String> holder = new GenericHolder<>();
        holder.setObj("Item");
        String s = holder.getObj();
    }
}
 
//GenericHolder.class
public class GenericHolder<T> {
  T obj;
 
  public GenericHolder();
    Code:
       0: aload_0       
       1: invokespecial #1                  // Method java/lang/Object."<init>":()V
       4: return        
 
  public T getObj();
    Code:
       0: aload_0       
       1: getfield      #2                  // Field obj:Ljava/lang/Object;
       4: areturn       
 
  public void setObj(T);
    Code:
       0: aload_0       
       1: aload_1       
       2: putfield      #2                  // Field obj:Ljava/lang/Object;
       5: return        
 
  public static void main(java.lang.String[]);
    Code:
       0: new           #3                  // class GenericHolder
       3: dup           
       4: invokespecial #4                  // Method "<init>":()V
       7: astore_1      
       8: aload_1       
       9: ldc           #5                  // String Item
      11: invokevirtual #6                  // Method setObj:(Ljava/lang/Object;)V
      14: aload_1       
      15: invokevirtual #7                  // Method getObj:()Ljava/lang/Object;
      18: checkcast     #8                  // class java/lang/String
      21: astore_2      
      22: return        
}

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