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I have the following method where T is a particular class, 

public Class<List<T>> responseClass();

While implementing this method, how should I return class of List<T> ?

Andy Turner
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Arpit Agarwal
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    You can't due to type erasure – Lino May 03 '19 at 06:53
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    What do you intend to do? What is the underlying problem you try to solve here? – GhostCat May 03 '19 at 06:57
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    @Lino you could using TypeTokens, for example – Eugene May 03 '19 at 10:55
  • @Eugene only works though if you know `T`. I think jackson has the same with `ParameterizedTypeReference`. Also it can't be done in a complete generic context, like a generic method – Lino May 03 '19 at 10:59
  • @Lino right. you could return a `Type` instead, though. – Eugene May 03 '19 at 11:01
  • @Lino it’s technically possible to capture a type parameter like `T`, the same way these type tokens work. But it wouldn’t be useful for anything. – Holger May 10 '19 at 10:45
  • @Holger from what I tried it just returns a `Type T` which is at most useful, to print the name of the type (which would still be only `T`) – Lino May 10 '19 at 10:48
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    @Lino well, it’s possible to match it with the declaration site, i.e. since it is not declared at the method in this example, it must be declared at a surrounding entity. However, the typical intention of being able to tell whether a particular object is of that type or to construct compatible instances, is not possible. At least not without another type token describing the parameterization of the surrounding entity that declared `T`. – Holger May 10 '19 at 10:52

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