class.method(XPath).select();

Question

I have a following line of code:

silk.<DomButton>find(buttonSubmitSearchXPathMain).select();

I've never seen a method being accompanied by <xxx>. I have a few other methods like that with the same brackets but different words. Unfortunately I'm unable to read the source for this method. Can someone please explain what is it? Just a description of a method? What is a purpose of it? Where can I read about it?

Heisenbug · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-29T00:25:39.397

It's a call to a static generic method. Have a look at this article. Generics allow generic programming.

For example this is a generic class:

public class GenericClass<T>{}

where generic type T is determined at compile time while instantiating the class.

GenericClass<String> class = new GenericClass<String>();

You can force the generic type to be descendant of a particular type. Example:

public class GenericClass<T extends JComponent>{}

This is useful to allow generic programming because inside a method you can threat the generic type independently of which is its real type.For example:

public class GenericClass<T extends JComponent>{

     private T component;
     public void showComponent(){
            T.setVisible(true);  //you can call this method. T could be a JComponent or a subclass of it
     }
}

In your case you are specifying the generic type while calling the static method, because of its static nature it could be invoked without having an instance.

class.method(XPath).select();

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