Java generic return type

Question

I\'d like to write a method that can accept a type param (or whatever the method can figure out the type from) and return a value of this type so I don\'t have to cast the r

Answer 1

The short answer is don't. As soon as instanceof gets involved, Generics are usually the wrong answer. Use overloaded methods instead:

public String doIt(String param){
    return "string";
}

public Integer doIt(Integer param){
    return 1;
}

public Object doIt(Object param){
    return null;
}