How to set the generic type of an ArrayList at runtime in java?

Question

Ok, so I am setting up my own XML serialization (I know there are others out there, even some built in to Java, but I am doing it myself to learn and because it is so awesome to work with). I have serialization down. I am currently on the deserialization (reading in the XML file and assembling objects based on the data in the file) and I am running into problems with setting generic types. After extensive research, I figured out how to get the generic types of a class so I could write them when serializing, but I have no clue how to do this:

Class c = Class.forName(string);
ArrayList<c> list = new ArrayList<c>();

I have seen a few answers for this in C#, but obviously C# is a bit more versatile than Java, and there is no way that I can replicate the solutions there in Java. Can this even be done, even with reflection?

Answer 1

You cannot set generic type at runtime. All generic type information is erased at compile time.

See below articles to understand type erasure:

Type Erasure StackOverflow

Type Erasure Tutorial