Lower bounded wildcard in generics

Lower bounded wildcard:

Java generics lower bounded wildcard : Lower bounded wildcard is used to restrict the unknown type to be a specific type or a super type of that type using ‘?’ with super keyword.

Syntax: Collectiontype <? super T>

Let us consider that we want to write a method which prints list items and work on List<Integer>, List<Number> and List<Object> or any type which can contain Integer type value. Normally we write it as:

public static void printListItems(List<Integer> list) {
    for (Integer num : list){
	        System.out.println(num);
    }
}

But this method will not work for List<Number> and List<Object>. We can use lower bounded wild card to resolve this problem. List<? super Integer> matches a list of Integer and any of its supertypes.

public static void printListItems(List<? super Integer> list) {
for (Object num : list){
        System.out.println(num);
    }
}

Lower bounded wildcard example:

GenericsTest.java

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
 
/**
 * This class is used to show the use of Lower bounded wildcard.
 * @author w3schools
 */
public class GenericsTest {
	//Only work for the list of Number type.
	static void printListItems1(List<Integer> list){
	    for (Integer num : list){
	        System.out.println(num);
	    }
	}
 
	//Work for Number and any of its sub types.
	static void printListItems2(List<? super Integer> list){
	    for (Object num : list){
	        System.out.println(num);
	    }
	}
 
	public static void main(String args[]){
		//Arraylist of Integer type.	
		List<Integer> list1 = new ArrayList<Integer>();
		list1.add(1);
		list1.add(2);
		list1.add(3);
 
 
		//Arraylist of Number type.	
		List<Number> list2 = new ArrayList<Number>();
		list2.add(1.4);
		list2.add(2.3);
		list2.add(3.4);	
 
		//Only accept Integer type list.
		System.out.println("Print of List of Integer type" +
				" using squareOfListItems1 method:");
		printListItems1(list1);
 
		//Accept Integer and any of its super types.
		System.out.println("Print of List of Integer type" +
				" using squareOfListItems2 method:");;
		printListItems2(list1);
		System.out.println("Print of List of Number type using" +
				" squareOfListItems2 method:");
		printListItems2(list2);
 
	}
}

Output:

Print of List of Integer type using squareOfListItems1 method:
1
2
3
Print of List of Integer type using squareOfListItems2 method:
1
2
3
Print of List of Number type using squareOfListItems2 method:
1.4
2.3
3.4

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