Why Can't You Directly Create Generic Arrays in Java?

How Generics and Arrays Interact

While you can create an array reference with a generic type (E[] elements), creating an array object with a generic type (elements = new E[10]) is prohibited. This is due to fundamental differences in how generics and arrays handle type enforcement.

Arrays and Covariance

Unlike generics, arrays are covariant. This means that an array of a supertype (e.g., Object[]) can be assigned to an array of a subtype (e.g., String[]). This is not the case with generics, which enforce invariance (e.g., List