Consider adding new reflection utility to instantiate a generic array

[sleberknight]

I just came across a situation where we needed to create a new empty array with a generic type T. If Java allowed this, it might look like:

// Assume T is a generic type parameter, e.g. in a method or on a type...

T[] emptyArrayOfT = new T[0];  // this won't actually compile

But we could add a helper method to KiwiReflection to accomplish this using Array.newInstance for example:

@SuppressWarnings({"unchecked", "unused"})
public static <T> T[] emptyArray(Class<T> type) {
  return (T[]) Array.newInstance(type, 0);
}

And we could also add one to create an empty generic array of a specific length:

@SuppressWarnings({ "unchecked", "unused" })
public static <T> T[] newArray(Class<T> type, int length) {
  return (T[]) Array.newInstance(type, length);
}

And then we could also have another newArray that uses varargs (since there is a Array.newInstance(Class<?> componentType, int... dimensions) to create a multidimensional generic array. But starting with just the first one or two is probably good enough, especially since the only actual need was for an empty generic array.

[sleberknight]

I have added emptyArray and newArray methods to KiwiReflection2 in kiwi-beta. See the PR here. These will be released in version 0.4.0.

[sleberknight]

After initially adding these to KiwiReflection2, I realized that was not the correct place. Instead, they are more related to arrays than reflection, so I created KiwiArrays2 and moved the methods there in this PR.

[sleberknight]

I am marking this discussed as Closed since it is now in kiwi-beta and may be moved to kiwi at some point.