Generic enum method

Question

Someone asked a question a few moments ago that got recalled because it was downvoted. It was clearly noted that enums themselves cannot be generic, but the question title was "generic enum method", and that of course is possible. The original question had some sample pseudo-Java code that went something like:

enum Test<T> {
    TEST1<T1>,
    TEST2<T2>,
    TEST3<T3>;
    // I missed some details they had here for overriding methods or such

   public T getInstance() {...
      // somehow returning a T1 when called on TEST1, a T2 for TEST2, etc.
   }
}

I am reasking, because I have a potential answer to below, to what may have been the question behind the question from @Radu.

Kevin Welker · Accepted Answer · 2012-08-03 04:50:14Z

The sample code that had been provided (which I tried to duplicate from memory in the above question, clearly cannot work as intended, since enums themselves cannot be generic.

But depending on what the original poster was trying to accomplish, the below may provide what was being sought, and it does compile and run.

public enum Test {
    TEST1(String.class),
    TEST2(Object.class),
    ;

    Class clazz;

    Test(Class<?> clazz) {
        this.clazz = clazz;
    }

    <T> T getInstance() throws IllegalAccessException, InstantiationException {
        return (T)clazz.newInstance();
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try {
            String str = TEST1.getInstance();
            Object obj = TEST2.getInstance();
        } catch (IllegalAccessException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } catch (InstantiationException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

There are some obvious flaws as written here. Depending on what type you are providing into each enum value, there may not be a no-arg constructor available. It could be made more complex through the use of Objenesis if needed to solve that problem. Also, I "cleverly" made the return type of the method to be a generic , so that it may be assigned without warnings/errors. However, it is totally non-typesafe to do so. You could reverse the assignments without compiler errors:

String str = TEST2.getInstance();
Object obj = TEST1.getInstance();

but you get a runtime ClassCastException.

In any case, I think I have proven that generic methods may be written in enums, and moreso that it is possible to write a single method in the enum that returns a new instance of differing class types, based on the type statically associated with each enum value (just not as a generic parameter of each enum value).

Thanks for the answer. Indeed, many things can be accomplished with reflection, but I was looking for an elegant and type safe way, supported by the language... When reflection is needed to do something, it's often a sign that the language support failed.
@Radu: When language says it is not possible, I think only possible way could be using Reflections.

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