The Java Language Specification, Third Edition

15.12.2 Compile-Time Step 2: Determine Method Signature EXPRESSIONS
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DISCUSSION
The possibility of an infinite type stems from the recursive calls to lub().
Readers familiar with recursive types should note that an infinite type is not the same
as a recursive type.
15.12.2.8 Inferring Unresolved Type Arguments
If any of the method’s type arguments were not inferred from the types of the
actual arguments, they are now inferred as follows.
• If the method result occurs in a context where it will be subject to assignment
conversion (§5.2) to a type S, then let R be the declared result type of the
method, and let R’ = R[T1 = B(T1) ... Tn = B(Tn)] where B(Ti) is the
type inferred for Ti in the previous section, or Ti if no type was inferred.
Then, a set of initial constraints consisting of:
• the constraint S >> R’, provided R is not void; and
• additional constraints Bi[T1 = B(T1) ... Tn = B(Tn)] >> Ti, where Bi
is the declared bound of Ti,
is created and used to infer constraints on the type arguments using the algorithm
of section (§15.12.2.7). Any equality constraints are resolved, and then, for
each remaining constraint of the form Ti