Improve generic type safety of CollectionUtils.sort

[codingkiddo]

What is changed

This PR updates CollectionUtils.sort to use a bounded generic type:

<T extends Comparable<? super T>>

To

public static <T extends Comparable<? super T>> List<T> sort(List<T> list)

The raw cast is also removed:

Collections.sort((List) list);

to

Collections.sort(list);

Why

CollectionUtils.sort currently accepts any List and relies on a raw cast with suppressed warnings.

This means callers can pass a list whose elements do not implement Comparable, and the code still compiles. However, sorting such a list can fail at runtime.

By using:

<T extends Comparable<? super T>>

the method now follows the same generic constraint style as java.util.Collections.sort.

This ensures that only naturally comparable elements can be passed to the method.

Benefit

• Improves compile-time type safety
• Removes raw type usage
• Removes unchecked/raw warning suppression
• Preserves the original return type as List
• Aligns the method with Java collection sorting conventions
• Supports inherited comparison cases, for example when a subtype inherits Comparable

Compatibility

The erased method signature remains sort(List), so this change should be binary-compatible.

However, this may be source-incompatible for callers that currently pass non-comparable element types to CollectionUtils.sort. Those usages would already be unsafe because they may fail at runtime.

Tests

Added/updated tests to verify:

Sorting a normal comparable list
Sorting a subtype whose parent implements Comparable

Fixes #16235

[codecov-commenter]

Codecov Report

✅ All modified and coverable lines are covered by tests.
✅ Project coverage is 60.79%. Comparing base (6916d1b) to head (d0fcc6b).

Additional details and impacted files

@@             Coverage Diff              @@
##                3.3   #16236      +/-   ##
============================================
+ Coverage     60.78%   60.79%   +0.01%     
- Complexity    11763    11768       +5     
============================================
  Files          1953     1953              
  Lines         89186    89186              
  Branches      13454    13454              
============================================
+ Hits          54209    54225      +16     
+ Misses        29400    29392       -8     
+ Partials       5577     5569       -8     

Flag	Coverage Δ
integration-tests-java21	32.11% <100.00%> (-0.05%)	⬇️
integration-tests-java8	32.22% <100.00%> (-0.01%)	⬇️
samples-tests-java21	32.19% <0.00%> (-0.01%)	⬇️
samples-tests-java8	29.84% <0.00%> (+0.03%)	⬆️
unit-tests-java11	59.01% <100.00%> (-0.01%)	⬇️
unit-tests-java17	58.49% <100.00%> (-0.03%)	⬇️
unit-tests-java21	58.52% <100.00%> (+<0.01%)	⬆️
unit-tests-java25	58.47% <100.00%> (+0.01%)	⬆️
unit-tests-java8	59.04% <100.00%> (+0.02%)	⬆️

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[zrlw]

LGTM