2 Copyright (C) 2004 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
4 This file is part of GNU Classpath.
6 GNU Classpath is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
7 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
8 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option)
11 GNU Classpath is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
12 WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
13 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
14 General Public License for more details.
16 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
17 along with GNU Classpath; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the
18 Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
21 Linking this library statically or dynamically with other modules is
22 making a combined work based on this library. Thus, the terms and
23 conditions of the GNU General Public License cover the whole
26 As a special exception, the copyright holders of this library give you
27 permission to link this library with independent modules to produce an
28 executable, regardless of the license terms of these independent
29 modules, and to copy and distribute the resulting executable under
30 terms of your choice, provided that you also meet, for each linked
31 independent module, the terms and conditions of the license of that
32 module. An independent module is a module which is not derived from
33 or based on this library. If you modify this library, you may extend
34 this exception to your version of the library, but you are not
35 obligated to do so. If you do not wish to do so, delete this
36 exception statement from your version. */
39 package java.lang.reflect;
43 * This is a common interface for all type variables provided by
44 * the Java language. Instances are created the first time a type
45 * variable is needed by one of the reflective methods declared in
49 * Creating a type variable requires resolving the appropriate type.
50 * This may involve resolving other classes as a side effect (e.g.
51 * if the type is nested inside other classes). Creation should not
52 * involve resolving the bounds. Repeated creation has no effect; an
53 * equivalent instance is returned. Caching is not required, but all
54 * instances must be <code>equal()</code> to each other.
57 * @author Tom Tromey (tromey@redhat.com)
58 * @author Andrew John Hughes (gnu_andrew@member.fsf.org)
61 public interface TypeVariable<T extends GenericDeclaration> extends Type
65 * Returns an array of <code>Type</code> objects which represent the upper
66 * bounds of this type variable. There is always a default bound of
67 * <code>Object</code>. Any <code>ParameterizedType</code>s will be
68 * created as necessary, and other types resolved.
70 * @return an array of <code>Type</code> objects representing the upper
72 * @throws TypeNotPresentException if any of the bounds refer to a
74 * @throws MalformedParameterizedTypeException if the creation of a
75 * <code>ParameterizedType</code> fails.
81 * Returns a representation of the declaration used to declare this
84 * @return the <code>GenericDeclaration</code> object for this type
87 T getGenericDeclaration();
90 * Returns the name of the type variable, as written in the source
93 * @return the name of the type variable.