It depends which way on the inheritance hierarchy it allows. Assume you have a class "Child" which inherits from "Parent" which inherits from "Grandparent".
<T extends Parent> accepts either Parent or Child while <T super Parent> accepts either Parent or Grandparent.
If you are asking about type parameters, then there is no <T super X> construct in Java. Bounded parameter can only extend, but it can extend more than one type. E.g
public class MyClass< T extends Closeable & Runnable >
{
// Closeable and Runnable are chosen for demonstration purposes only
}
In this case if you see MyClass< ConcreteT > then ConcreteT must be declared as
public class ConcreteT
implements Closeable, Runnable
{
...
}
For bounded wildcards, read this article. Read section on get-put principle. Basically, super corresponds to write semantics, and extends corresponds to read semantics.
For me the best answer came from @BSingh, when i read the article of Uncle Bob. I resume here, the conclusion of article.
Use List< T super Suit> whenever you are going to write into the list.
When you put an Object to the List, all you care about is that the object is of a type that is compatible with type held by the list. So you want the list to take the type of that object or any of the superclasses of that object.
Use List< T extends Suit> whenever you are going to read from a list.
On the other hand, when you read from a list, you want the type you are reading to be the type contained byt the list, or a derivative from that type.