Solidity - Interface & ERC-165 by OpenZeppelin

Question

I am struggling to understand this below implementation of the ERC-165 standard by OpenZeppelin. This is by default imported in the ERC721 token smart contract of OZ. I do get the aim of the ERC-165 standard but not this code snippet. And what does "type(IERC721)" function is actually doing ? Thanks a lot in advance for your help.

 function supportsInterface(bytes4 interfaceId) public view virtual override(ERC165, IERC165) returns (bool) {
        return interfaceId == type(IERC721).interfaceId
            || interfaceId == type(IERC721Metadata).interfaceId
            || super.supportsInterface(interfaceId);

Answer 1

The expression type(A) is used to retrieve information about A. In this case

type(I).interfaceId

A bytes4 value containing the EIP-165 interface identifier of the given interface I. This identifier is defined as the XOR of all function selectors defined within the interface itself - excluding all inherited functions.

For other properties available see the type() documentation.