Generic OR instead of AND

Question

Is it possible to generically parameterize a method accepting EITHER ClassA OR InterfaceB ?

Does Not Compile Due to | Pseudocode

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Answer 1

If you really want to do that, you'll need to wrap youur accepted classes inside a custom class of your own. In your example case, probably something like:

public class OrDoerElement {
    private final Number numberValue;
    private final CharSequence charSequenceValue;

    private OrDoerElement(Number number, CharSequence charSequence) {
        this.numberValue = number;
        this.charSequenceValue = charSequence;
    }

    public static OrDoerElement fromCharSequence(CharSequence value) {
        return new OrDoerElement(null, value);
    }

    public static OrDoerElement fromNumber(Number value) {
        return new OrDoerElement(value, null);
    }
}

And your orDoer method becomes:

public void orDoer(OrDoerElement someData) { .... }

Then you can build one of those and use in your method using either:

orDoer(OrDoerElement.fromCharSequence("a string of chars"));
orDoer(OrDoerElement.fromNumber(new Integer(6)));

But honestly, that sounds a bit too complex and too much work just to be able to call a method with different parameter types. Are you sure you can't achieve the same using two methods, and a third method for the common logic?