Confused about the following 'generics' code [duplicate]

Question

I can't seem to fully understand the following statement.

<T> T[] toArray( T[] a );

Although, I understand that the above statement is the declaration of a function that should be able to accept and return an array of T type objects... I do not understand why

1 - The two T's are not surrounded with <>

2 - There appear to be 2 return types, as in <T> & T[]

Answer 1

<T> is not a return type. It's a declaration of the generic type parameter used by the method. Once it's declared, it can be used in the method signature without the <>;