Description R Lenard 2005-03-29 18:46:02 EST

This code is meant to not emit any warnings, but does.. Eclipse doesn't seem to 
be honouring the annotations.  Theoretically the @SuppressWarnings
({"unchecked"}) should tell Eclipse not to emit this.

"Type safety: The cast from T to Comparable<T> is actually checking against the 
erased type Comparable"

% cat Test.java
import java.util.Comparator;

/** */
public class Test
{
    /**
     * 
     * @param <T>
     * @param comparator
     * @param first
     * @param second
     * @return a value
     * @throws ClassCastException
     */
    @SuppressWarnings ({"unchecked"})
    public static <T> int compare(final Comparator<? super T> comparator, final 
T first, final T second)
        throws ClassCastException
    {
        // Same object (or both null) - quick exit.
        if (first == second)
        {
            return 0;
        }

        // If either is null, it is less than the other.
        if (first == null)
        {
            return -1;
        }
        else if (second == null)
        {
            return 1;
        }

        // Ensure that compare is consistent with equals
        if (first.equals(second))
        {
            return 0;
        }

        // If possible use {@link Comparator#compare}.
        if (comparator != null)
        {
            return comparator.compare(first, second);
        }

        // Fallback to the {@link Comparable#compareTo} implementation to 
determine.
        return ((Comparable<T>) first).compareTo(second);
    }
}