Subclass specification

Question

From http://web.mit.edu/6.031/www/fa19/classes/12-interfaces-enums/#implementing_generic_interfaces

"That means B is only a subtype of A if B’s specification is at least as strong as A’s specification. When we declare a class that implements an interface, the Java compiler enforces part of this requirement automatically: for example, it ensures that every method in A appears in B, with a compatible type signature. Class B cannot implement interface A without implementing all of the methods declared in A.

But the compiler cannot check that we haven’t weakened the specification in other ways: strengthening the precondition on some inputs to a method, weakening a postcondition, weakening a guarantee that the interface abstract type advertises to clients. If you declare a subtype in Java — implementing an interface is our current focus — then you must ensure that the subtype’s spec is at least as strong as the supertype’s."

However, later they define a generic class Set with method contains(E e) and a non-generic subclass CharSet with method contains(Character e). Does this count as strengthening pre-condition? If so, does it contradict the above?

Answer 1

CharSet is not a subtype of Set<E>, but it is a subtype of Set<Character>. If you compare the signatures of the contains methods for Set<Character> and CharSet, you'll see that the preconditions are identical.

It might be helpful to imagine that Set is not a type and is not meaningful on its own; you have to instantiate the generic parameter to obtain a type.