Equality with generics?

Question

Here's my code:
public boolean equals(Object anObject)
          if (!(anObject instanceof SearchNode)) return false;
          SearchNode<T> node = (SearchNode<T>)anObject;
          return getInnerNode().equals(node.getInnerNode());
     }Questions:
1.     Why am I getting the unchecked cast exception on the second line (the assignment)?
2.     How do I fix it?
3.     Is there nothing better to do than just suppress it?
4.     Is there some way I can do this without casting?

Answer 1

You are getting the exception because you are casting anObject as a SearchNode, but the SearchNode's content is still unknown, so you are forcing it to be of type T.
To solve it, you can use as argument a SearchNode<T> instead an Object, but I think is not a good idea.
But, you can omit the generics, just rewrite the second line: SearchNode node = (SearchNode)anObject; The polymorphism will do the rest.