Instantiate an object of a class where the class is given via generics [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Create instance of generic type in Java?

I have some code:

public class foo<K> {
    public void bar() {
        K cheese = new K();
        // stuff
    }
}

This does not compile and Intellij's linter tells me Type parameter 'K' cannot be instantiated directly.

How would I instance a new copy of K.

Answer 1

You can't do this nicely due to type erasure. The standard means of doing it is to pass the appropriate Class object, and use this to instantiate a new instance.

e.g. from here:

public static <E> void append(List<E> list, Class<E> cls) throws Exception {
    E elem = cls.newInstance();   // OK
    list.add(elem);
}