In what situations are generics used in programming?

Generic types are used to create universal components that can work with different data types while maintaining type safety.

Use cases for generic types:

• Collections: for example, a list or a map that can contain elements of any type but guarantees that all elements are of the same type.
• Universal algorithms: functions or classes that can process different data types without duplicating code.
• Enhanced safety: the compiler checks type correctness during compilation, reducing errors at runtime.

Example in Java:

public class Box<T> {
    private T value;

    public void set(T value) {
        this.value = value;
    }

    public T get() {
        return value;
    }
}

Box<Integer> intBox = new Box<>();
intBox.set(10);
Integer val = intBox.get();

Here, the Box class is generic and can store any type specified when creating an instance. This allows writing more flexible and reusable code.