Why are there two implementations for retrieving the component type of an array-class? [closed]

Question

Java 1.1 introduced Class#getComponentType() which

Returns the {@code Class} representing the component type of an array. If this class does not represent an array class this method returns null.

Since Java 12 there is also Class#componentType() which is semantically equivalent (as also specified in its documentation).

Returns the component type of this {@code Class}, if it describes an array type, or {@code null} otherwise.

...

Equivalent to {@link Class#getComponentType()}.

My Questions:

• Which one should I use? Neither of them is deprecated as of Java 21.
• Why does this happen? The function is so simple that there seems to be no implementation specific benefit.

Answer 1

Which one should I use? Neither of them is deprecated as of Java 21.

Use getComponentType(), just as you always have.

Why does this happen? The function is so simple that there seems to be no implementation specific benefit.

Because, as Progman pointed out, as of Java 12, Class implements the TypeDescriptor.OfField interface. The new method is required to implement it.

This happens from time to time and it is normal. For example, String has both a subSequence method and a substring method. One of those methods exists so that String conforms to the CharSequence interface.

If your code is not referring to objects using the TypeDescriptor.OfField type, there is no reason to make use of componentType(). Just keep using the same getComponentType() method as before.