type erasure

English

type erasure (countable and uncountable, plural type erasures)

(software) A compile-time process by which explicit data type annotations are removed from a program, before run-time execution.
- 2009, Dean Wampler, Alex Payne, Programming Scala: Scalability = Functional Programming + Objects, "O'Reilly Media, Inc.", →ISBN, page 249:
  Although .NET does not have type erasure, meaning it supports reified types, the .NET version of Scala currently follows the JVM's erasure model in order to avoid incompatibilities that would require a “forked” implementation.
- 2014, James Gosling, Bill Joy, Guy L. Steele Jr., Gilad Bracha, Alex Buckley, The Java Language Specification, Java SE 8 Edition, Addison-Wesley Professional, →ISBN, page 64:
  Type erasure is a mapping from types (possibly including parameterized types and type variables) to types (that are never parameterized types or type variables).
(C++ programming) A technique by which a class is made generic without requiring compile-time template arguments.
- 2019, Fedor G. Pikus, Hands-On Design Patterns with C++: Solve common C++ problems with modern design patterns and build robust applications, Packt Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, page 102:
  Type erasure is often seen as a mysterious, enigmatic programming technique. It is not exclusive to C++ (most tutorials on type erasure use Java for their examples).