About error using Java generics: "type parameter S is not within its bound"

Question

I am writing some classes using Generics but I can't find a solution for the class SolutionsSubset and so I a getting the error "type parameter S is not within its bound". I have read previous questions about the same error but I can't solve it for my case. Could anybody help me to improve my knowledge about generics? Any reference to a good book (I can find in google a lot of information but if someone can reccommend a book, tutorial, etc. will be welcome). Although I tried to keep in mind the rules to ask a question but I apologize if my question doesn't fulfill these rules.

I have the following classes and interfaces:

public interface Subset<T extends Comparable<T>> extends Comparable<Subset<T>>
public class MathSubset<T extends Comparable<T>> extends TreeSet<T> implements Subset<T>

public interface Solution<T extends Comparable<T>>

public interface Solutions<S extends Solution<?>> extends Iterable<S>
public class SolutionsSubset<S extends Solution<?>> extends MathSubset<S> implements Solutions<S>

I need that Subset extends Comparable. In SolutionsSubset, the class MathSubset stores Solution objects. How do I have to change these definition to make it work?

Thanks you in advance

Answer 1

In order to be used as the type argument in MathSubset, SolutionsSubsets S must extend Comparable<S>. As a compilable example:

import java.util.TreeSet;

interface Subset<T extends Comparable<T>>
     extends Comparable<Subset<T>> { }

class MathSubset<T extends Comparable<T>>
    extends TreeSet<T>
    implements Subset<T>
{
    public int compareTo(Subset<T> other) { throw new Error(); }
}

interface Solution<T extends Comparable<T>> { }

interface Solutions<S extends Solution<?>> extends Iterable<S> { }

class SolutionsSubset<S extends Solution<?> & Comparable<S>>
    extends MathSubset<S>
    implements Solutions<S>
{ }

A few comments: This is very abstract example, and so not easy to think about. Laying out the code so you don't need to scroll is good. There's an awful lot of inheritance going on here, perhaps compose rather than, say, extending TreeSet. It's difficult to distinguish between the identifiers Solutions and Solution.