How Can I Get a Class Literal for a Generic Type in Java?

Getting a Class Literal from a Generic Type in Java

Class literals are commonly used to represent types statically. However, difficulties arise when dealing with generic types.

Typically, for non-generic types, class literals can be obtained using the syntax Foo.class. When applying this to generic types like List, a warning is raised due to the absence of type parameters. Attempting to add a wildcard (?) to allow for unknown type parameters results in a type mismatch error. Additionally, using List.class syntax causes a syntax error.

The problem stems from Java's type erasure feature. Generic types are converted to their raw types during compilation, meaning their type arguments are lost at runtime. As a result, parameterized types lack their own runtime representation and do not have corresponding Class objects.

Therefore, it is impossible to obtain a Class literal for a parameterized type such as List using methods like List.class. This is because Java eliminates generic type information during compilation, leaving only the raw type representation.

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