Creating instance list of different objects

问题:

I'm tring to create an arraylist of different class instances. How can I create a list without defining a class type? (<Employee>)

List<Employee> employees = new ArrayList<Employee>();
employees.add(new Employee());
Employee employee = employees.get(0);

回答1:

You could create a list of Object like List<Object> list = new ArrayList<Object>(). As all classes implementation extends implicit or explicit from java.lang.Object class, this list can hold any object, including instances of Employee, Integer, String etc.

When you retrieve an element from this list, you will be retrieving an Object and no longer an Employee, meaning you need to perform a explicit cast in this case as follows:

List<Object> list = new ArrayList<Object>();
list.add("String");
list.add(Integer.valueOf(1));
list.add(new Employee());

Object retrievedObject = list.get(2);
Employee employee = (Employee)list.get(2); // explicit cast

回答2:

List<Object> objects = new ArrayList<Object>();

objects list will accept any of the Object

You could design like as follows

public class BaseEmployee{/* stuffs */}

public class RegularEmployee extends BaseEmployee{/* stuffs */}

public class Contractors extends BaseEmployee{/* stuffs */}

and in list

List<? extends BaseEmployee> employeeList = new ArrayList<? extends BaseEmployee>();

回答3:

List anyObject = new ArrayList();

or

List<Object> anyObject = new ArrayList<Object>();

now anyObject can hold objects of any type.

use instanceof to know what kind of object it is.

回答4:

I believe your best shot is to declare the list as a list of objects:

List<Object> anything = new ArrayList<Object>();

Then you can put whatever you want in it, like:

anything.add(new Employee(..))

Evidently, you will not be able to read anything out of the list without a proper casting:

Employee mike = (Employee) anything.get(0);

I would discourage the use of raw types like:

List anything = new ArrayList()

Since the whole purpose of generics is precisely to avoid them, in the future Java may no longer suport raw types, the raw types are considered legacy and once you use a raw type you are not allowed to use generics at all in a given reference. For instance, take a look a this another question: Combining Raw Types and Generic Methods

回答5:

How can I create a list without defining a class type? (<Employee>)

If I'm reading this correctly, you just want to avoid having to specify the type, correct?

In Java 7, you can do

List<Employee> list = new ArrayList<>();

but any of the other alternatives being discussed are just going to sacrifice type safety.

回答6:

If you can't be more specific than Object with your instances, then use:

List<Object> employees = new ArrayList<Object>();

Otherwise be as specific as you can:

List<? extends SpecificType> employees = new ArrayList<? extends SpecificType>();