Java method overload - ambiguity

While I was doing some runs to test some code in this thread I found out a strange thing, If you consider the following program ``` import java.util.ArrayList; import java.util.List; public class OverloadTest { public String test1(List l){ return "abc"; } public int test1(List<Integer> l){ return 1; } public static void main(String [] args) { List l = new ArrayList(); System.out.println(new OverloadTest().test1(l)); } } ``` I was expecting Java compiler to show ambiguity error due to byte-code Erasure property, but it didn't. Now when I tried to run this code, I was expecting that `test1(List)` will be called and the output would be `"abc"` but to my surprise it called `test1(List<Integer>)` (output was `1`) I even tried like below ``` List l = new ArrayList(); l.add("a"); System.out.println(new OverloadTest().test1(l)); ``` But still found Java calling `test1(List<Integer> param)` method and when i inspected the `param` it had the `String` "a" ( how did Java cast `List<String>` to `List<Integer>` ?)