Type safety: Unchecked cast

Question

In my spring application context file, I have something like:

<util:map id="someMap" map-class="java.util.HashMap" key-type="java.lang.String" value-type="java.lang.String">
    <entry key="some_key" value="some value" />
    <entry key="some_key_2" value="some value" />   
</util:map>

In java class, the implementation looks like:

private Map<String, String> someMap = new HashMap<String, String>();
someMap = (HashMap<String, String>)getApplicationContext().getBean("someMap");

In Eclipse, I see a warning that says:

Type safety: Unchecked cast from Object to HashMap

What did I do wrong? How do I resolve the issue?

Answer 1

You are getting this message because getBean returns an Object reference and you are casting it to the correct type. Java 1.5 gives you a warning. That's the nature of using Java 1.5 or better with code that works like this. Spring has the typesafe version

someMap=getApplicationContext().getBean<HashMap<String, String>>("someMap");

on its todo list.

Answer 2

A warning is just that. A warning. Sometimes warnings are irrelevant, sometimes they're not. They're used to call your attention to something that the compiler thinks could be a problem, but may not be.

In the case of casts, it's always going to give a warning in this case. If you are absolutely certain that a particular cast will be safe, then you should consider adding an annotation like this (I'm not sure of the syntax) just before the line:

@SuppressWarnings (value="unchecked")

Answer 3

Another solution, if you find yourself casting the same object a lot and you don't want to litter your code with @SupressWarnings("unchecked"), would be to create a method with the annotation. This way you're centralizing the cast, and hopefully reducing the possibility for error.

@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
public static List<String> getFooStrings(Map<String, List<String>> ctx) {
    return (List<String>) ctx.get("foos");
}