How to declare java.lang.Class variable that can be used in Enum.valueOf(.)

Question

As per subject -- we have a need to declare variable in class that will hold enum's Class object. At some point we want to use this variable as a Class argument for Enum.valueOf(.) which has the following signature:
public static <T extends Enum<T>> T valueOf(Class<T> enumType, String name) {..}So far we cannot come up with a workable solution.
private final Class<? extends Enum<?>> propertyClass;doesn't work (apparently because second ? should in fact be the same as first ? -- which works with T for class/method templates, but cannot be used for variables). Error message (in Eclipse) is:
Bound mismatch: The generic method valueOf(Class<T>, String) of type Enum<E> is not applicable for the arguments (Class<capture#13-of ? extends Enum<?>>, String). The inferred type capture#13-of ? extends Enum<?> is not a valid substitute for the bounded parameter <T extends Enum<T>>
So what would be the proper way to declare the variable?
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

the enum.valueof method is a little weird. they implemented it so it is nice and "safe". if you don't care about that safety, you can probably work with raw types for that bit of code and get the call to go through. you just won't have any type safety on the result.