How to cast List<Map<?, ?>> into List<Map<String, String>>?

Question

I am making bukkit plugin and one function returns List<Map<?, ?>>, if I to do that:

List<Map<String, String>> circle = FileManager.area.getMapList("circles");

I get error that it can't be converted. What do to?

The error:

List<Map<?, ?>> cannot be converted into List<Map<String, String>>

Answer 1

You can cast away all the generics by casting to the raw type, (List):

List<Map<String, String>> circle = (List) FileManager.area.getMapList("circles");

Note that as with most casts this is unsafe - it's better to find a way to pass the correct type information through, as other answers suggest.