Incomparable types: java.lang.Class<capture#1 of ? extends T[]> and java.lang.Class<java.lang.Object[]>

Question

I was trying to understand casting in java while I was playing with a few methods inside the Arrays Class.

I am using IntelliJ IDEA and in the following method

public static <T,U> T[] copyOf(U[] original, int newLength, Class<? extends T[]> newType) {
    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    T[] copy = ((Object)newType == (Object)Object[].class)
        ? (T[]) new Object[newLength]
        : (T[]) Array.newInstance(newType.getComponentType(), newLength);
    System.arraycopy(original, 0, copy, 0,
                     Math.min(original.length, newLength));
    return copy;
}

in the following line:

T[] copy = ((Object)newType == (Object)Object[].class)

IDE suggests that casting to (Object) is redundant.

Removing the casting is causing the following error.

Incomparable types: java.lang.Class<capture#1 of ? extends T[]> and java.lang.Class<java.lang.Object[]>

which made me thing that at first the error is correct, but experimenting for a while made me realise that I did not understand the issue because refactoring the code like ->

T[] copy = (newType == (Object)Object[].class)

and

T[] copy = ((Object)newType == Object[].class)

does NOT produce this error.

I cannot figure out why it does not produce this error, could someone explain?

Answer 1

The incomparable types error is telling you that it doesn't make sense to compare two things that cannot possibly be equal.

For example, there's no point in Integer.valueOf(0) == "" , because they're not the same types; nor is one a supertype of the other. It will always be false.

The compiler will prevent the a == b if both are class types (as opposed to interfaces), and both a = b and b = a would be disallowed.

So, you are being told that a Class<? extends T[]> Class<? extends T[]> cannot be equal to a Class<Object[]> , because you can't assign a reference of one type to a variable of the other type.

By casting one of the references to Object , the compiler no longer knows (/thinks) that the types are definitely not related - because Object is a supertype of everything, so "nor is one a supertype of the other" is no longer true - so the compiler allows the check.

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One thing that is redundant in that method is U . There's no need for it, just use Object[] in the parameter type instead.