What does this Java generic paradigm do and what is it called?

I'm looking at some Java classes with the following forms:

public 
abstract
class A <E extends A<E>> implements Comparable <E> {

   public final int compareTo( E other ) {
      //  etc
   }   
}

public 
class B extends A <B> {
   // etc
}

public 
class C extends A <C> {
   // etc
}

I use "comparable" here only to illustrate the possible use of the general parameter "e" Does this use of generic / inheritance have a name? What is it for?

My impression is that this allows abstract classes to provide a generic implementation of methods (such as CompareTo) without having to provide it in subclasses However, in this example, unlike inheritance methods, it restricts subclasses from calling CompareTo on other instances of the same subclass, rather than any "a" subclass Does that sound good?

Anyway, just curious if any master has seen this before and knows what it has done

thank you!

Solution

In C, it is called curiously recurring template pattern (CRTP) I don't know if it has a different name in Java (or even if it has a name), but it may be used for similar purposes