Java List T[] toArray(T[] a) implementation

Question

I was just looking at the method defined in the List interface: T[] toArray(T[] a) , and I have a question. Why is it generic? Because of that fact, m

Answer 1

It is declared generically so that you can write code such as

Integer[] intArray = list.toArray(new Integer[0]);

without casting the array coming back.

It is declared with the following annotation:

@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")

In other words, Java is trusting you to pass in an array parameter of the same type, so your error does not occur.