Java – a tricky static generic method with a generic return type, which itself can be generic

I have a course as follows:

public class MyConverter {
    public <T> T convert (Object o,String typeidentifier,T dummy)
    {
         ... do some conversions such as a java array to an ArrayList or vice versa
         ... based on a typeidentifier Syntax similar to Class.getName() but which
         ... embeds information about generic subtypes
    }
}

And hope to do something like this:

int[] ar = {...};
ArrayList<Integer> dummy = null;
Integer elem = MyConverter.convert(ar,"java.util.ArrayList<Integer>",dummy)
                  .get(15);

In other words, the T in the transformation itself may be a general instance. I found that to achieve this goal, I must pass a fully typed virtual, because ArrayList Class won't give the java compiler enough information. It's an ArrayList < integer > If I use class < T > dummy LS instead of T dummy

Did I miss anything? Is there a way to write and invoke transformations without virtual?

Solution

Specify the type of call instead of letting Java infer the type:

Integer elem = MyConverter.<ArrayList<Integer>>convert(ar,"java.util.ArrayList<Integer>");

This link describes this (cool) syntax