Compiler error on Java generic interface with a List<> method [duplicate]

Answer 1

If I am interpreting the Java Language Specification (§4.6. Type Erasure) correctly, this is a "gotcha" of the language:

Type erasure also maps the signature (§8.4.2) of a constructor or method to a signature that has no parameterized types or type variables. The erasure of a constructor or method signature s is a signature consisting of the same name as s and the erasures of all the formal parameter types given in s.

I believe that this states that if you declare a type (Task) that is declared with a generic parameter (Task<U>) without said generic parameter, all its functions also lose their generic types, whether they are related or not. Therefore, your task.getIDs() is interpreted by the compiler as returning a plain List, not a List<Integer>. The iterator for that, of course, produces Objects, not Integers, causing the compiler error you see.

The reason for this is likely backwards compatibility with code produced before Java 1.5, when generics were introduced.

Answer 2

The error seems to lie here:

Task task = new MyTask();

You have forgotten to add generics after Task. It should work if you change it to one of these:

Task<Boolean> task = new MyTask();
Task<?> task = new MyTask();

Answer 3

What is happening is when use use a class (or interface) with a generic parameter <T> but refer to and instance of the without <T> (ie. that raw type) the compiler erases all generic type information from the class. This is likely due to compatibility with pre-1.5 source code where you wouldn't be able to use generic type information at all.

Consider the situation where you are writing code and compiling on a Java 1.4 compiler. You want to use a library which makes use of generics. When you refer to a type from that library which has generic parameters as a raw type, the compiler enforces the use of no generic parameters.

EDIT:

The JLS-4.8-210 alludes to this when it mentions (credit: zhong-j-yu):

The type of a constructor (§8.8), instance method (§8.4, §9.4), or non-static field (§8.3) M of a raw type C that is not inherited from its superclasses or superinterfaces is the raw type that corresponds to the erasure of its type in the generic declaration corresponding to C.

This still feels like a gotcha, but it is likely for some reason.