Java Generic Methods: How to Call Them

To invoke a Java generic method, you can follow these steps:

1. Define a generic method. First, declare the generic parameters using angle brackets (<>) before the method’s return type. For example, suppose we want to define a generic method to compare the sizes of two objects:
2. The method compares two objects of type T that implement the Comparable interface and returns the result.
3. In this example, we use a generic parameter T to represent the type of objects that can be compared.
4. Invoke a generic method.
   When calling a generic method, you need to specify the actual type parameters using angle brackets (<>). For example, to compare the size of two integers, you can call a generic method in this way:
5. Assign the value returned by comparing 10 and 5 to the variable “result”.
6. In this example, we invoke the compare method and specify the actual type parameter as Integer using angle brackets.
7. Generic methods can also be called by specifying actual type parameters, for example:
8. String result = this.compare(“abc”, “def”);
9. In this example, we specified the actual type parameter as String and called the compare method.

It is worth noting that the type parameter of a generic method can be inferred based on the actual usage of the method, so in most cases, the type parameter in angle brackets can be omitted. For example, the compare method can be called like this:

int result = compare(10, 5);

In this example, the compiler can infer that the actual type parameter for the method is Integer based on the type of the method’s arguments.