How To Instantiate a java.util.ArrayList with Generic Class Using Reflection

Question

How To Instantiate a java.util.ArrayList with Generic Class Using Reflection? I am writing a method that sets java.util.List on target object. A target object and a generic

Answer 1

Generics are a compile-time only "trick".

Reflection is runtime-only.

Basically, you can't - you can only create a "raw" ArrayList. If you need to pass it into methods that take generic parameters, casting it directly after construction will be safe (regardless of the "unchecked" warning). In this example, there's no compile-time type safety anyway due to using general Objects, so no casting is needed.