WebElement API flexibility: cannot extend findElements(By)

[mfulton26]

I want to extend WebElement in my library but the signature for findElements(By) is causing me trouble:

List<WebElement> findElements(By by);

Compiling a class, ExtendedWebElement, that implements WebElement and overrides findElements(By) using a different return type, i.e. List<ExtendedWebElement> findElements(By by);, produces the following error message:
[ERROR] return type java.util.List<com.example.selenium.ExtendedWebElement> is not compatible with java.util.List<org.openqa.selenium.WebElement>

Can we change the signature to use a bounded wildcard to increase API flexibility?

List<? extends WebElement> findElements(By by);

If so then it will be much more flexible (e.g. extensible). Thank you.

[jleyba]

See pull request #863

[mfulton26]

I like it. <T extends WebElement> List<T> findElements(By by); is, I think, even better than List<? extends WebElement> findElements(By by); as the latter would force users to use wildcard types in client code and the prior does not. Thanks!

[diemol]

Closing this issue since all the discussion was done in the PR, in addition, the PR was not merged but its purpose was achieved in the end through the implementation of generics in the Java bindings for Appium.