What's the reason I can't create generic array types in Java?

Question

What's the reason why Java doesn't allow us to do

private T[] elements = new T[initialCapacity];

I could understand .NET didn't allow us to do that, as in .NET you have value types that at run-time can have different sizes, but in Java all kinds of T will be object references, thus having the same size (correct me if I'm wrong).

What is the reason?

Answer 1

It's because Java's arrays (unlike generics) contain, at runtime, information about its component type. So you must know the component type when you create the array. Since you don't know what T is at runtime, you can't create the array.