package sh.calaba.org.codehaus.jackson.type;

import java.lang.reflect.ParameterizedType;
import java.lang.reflect.Type;

/**
 * This class is used to pass full generics type information, and
 * avoid problems with type erasure (that basically removes most
 * usable type references from runtime Class objects).
 * It is based on ideas from
 * <a href="http://gafter.blogspot.com/2006/12/super-type-tokens.html"
 * >http://gafter.blogspot.com/2006/12/super-type-tokens.html</a>,
 * Additional idea (from a suggestion made in comments of the article)
 * is to require bogus implementation of <code>Comparable</code>
 * (any such generic interface would do, as long as it forces a method
 * with generic type to be implemented).
 * to ensure that a Type argument is indeed given.
 *<p>
 * Usage is by sub-classing: here is one way to instantiate reference
 * to generic type <code>List&lt;Integer></code>:
 *<pre>
 *  TypeReference ref = new TypeReference&lt;List&lt;Integer>>() { };
 *</pre>
 * which can be passed to methods that accept TypeReference.
 */
public abstract class TypeReference<T>
    implements Comparable<TypeReference<T>>
{
    final Type _type;

    protected TypeReference()
    {
        Type superClass = getClass().getGenericSuperclass();
        if (superClass instanceof Class<?>) { // sanity check, should never happen
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Internal error: TypeReference constructed without actual type information");
        }
        /* 22-Dec-2008, tatu: Not sure if this case is safe -- I suspect
         *   it is possible to make it fail?
         *   But let's deal with specifc
         *   case when we know an actual use case, and thereby suitable
         *   work arounds for valid case(s) and/or error to throw
         *   on invalid one(s).
         */
        _type = ((ParameterizedType) superClass).getActualTypeArguments()[0];
    }

    public Type getType() { return _type; }

    /**
     * The only reason we define this method (and require implementation
     * of <code>Comparable</code>) is to prevent constructing a
     * reference without type information.
     */
    @Override
    public int compareTo(TypeReference<T> o) {
        // just need an implementation, not a good one... hence:
        return 0;
    }
}