Lambdas in Java 8
February 05, 2014 12:05Today I will introduce a feature of the upcoming Java 8, a programming language feature I really like: lambdas. Support for lambdas and higher order (HO) functions is what made me switch to Scala when I went back to JVM-land a couple of years ago: after tasting lambdas in C#, I wasn't able to go back to a programming language without them.
Now Java 8 promises to bring them to Java: something I was waiting for a long time!
First thing: do not get scared by terminology. The whole concept is borrowed from functional programming languages, where functions are king (just like objects are king in Object Oriented Programming).
Functional programmers love to define every theoretical aspect in detail, hence the fancy words.
But here I want to keep it simple; the whole concept around lambdas and HO functions is that you can pass functions as arguments to other functions.
Passing functions around is incredibly useful in many scenarios, but I want to focus on the very best one: handling collections.
Suppose we have a collection of Files, and we want to perform a very common operation: go through these files, do something with them. Perhaps, we want to print all the directories:
Or print all the “big” files:
Have you spotted the problem? Yes, there is some code duplication.
In Java, we already have a tool to go around it: object orientation.
Now we can implement our original functions using specific “Filter” classes, or even anonymous classes:
This is already quite close to passing a function around; instead, you pass a functional interface, an interface that contains only one abstract method. Anonymous classes derived from functional interfaces are just single inline functions... lambdas!
So far.. cool! Shorter, more general, readable.
But what really matters is the ecosystem built around this simple concept. It is possible to write general functions accepting functions, and the new JDK already provides the most useful ones, Aggregate Operations.
As an example, take our “IFilter” functional interface. With it, you can build a “filter” function:
which is one of these Aggregate Operations. The Stream class defines it and many others as member functions, making them even easier to compose through chaining.
I just want to give you an hint on how they are used for complex collections processing.
Do you want to get all the big tar files, open them, print every word in each text file you find inside?
Compact, clean.
Now try to do it in Java 7... look at the indentation! It is easy to get lost in the mechanics of collection handling.
We only scratched the surface of what can be done with lambdas; together with aggregate operations and generics, they are a very powerful tool that will make most of the data transformation operations easy. And they are very efficient too! But this is something for another post.
Now Java 8 promises to bring them to Java: something I was waiting for a long time!
Lambdas, higher order functions... what?
First thing: do not get scared by terminology. The whole concept is borrowed from functional programming languages, where functions are king (just like objects are king in Object Oriented Programming).
Functional programmers love to define every theoretical aspect in detail, hence the fancy words.
But here I want to keep it simple; the whole concept around lambdas and HO functions is that you can pass functions as arguments to other functions.
Functional Java
Passing functions around is incredibly useful in many scenarios, but I want to focus on the very best one: handling collections.
Suppose we have a collection of Files, and we want to perform a very common operation: go through these files, do something with them. Perhaps, we want to print all the directories:
static void printAllDirectoriesToStdout(List files) {
for (File f: files) {
if (f.isDirectory()) {
System.out.println(f.getName());
}
} Or print all the “big” files:
static void printBigFilesToStdout(List files) {
for (File f: files) {
if (f.getTotalSpace() > threshold) {
System.out.println(f.getName());
}
} Have you spotted the problem? Yes, there is some code duplication.
In Java, we already have a tool to go around it: object orientation.
interface IFilter {
boolean isOk(T file);
}
public static void printFilesToStdout(List files, IFilter filter) {
for (File f: files) {
if (filter.isOk(f) {
System.out.println(f.getName());
}
} Now we can implement our original functions using specific “Filter” classes, or even anonymous classes:
printFilesToStdout(files, new IFilter() {
public boolean isOk(File file) { return f.isDirectory(); }
}); This is already quite close to passing a function around; instead, you pass a functional interface, an interface that contains only one abstract method. Anonymous classes derived from functional interfaces are just single inline functions... lambdas!
printFilesToStdout(files, (File f) -> f.isDirectory());Aggregate Operations
So far.. cool! Shorter, more general, readable.
But what really matters is the ecosystem built around this simple concept. It is possible to write general functions accepting functions, and the new JDK already provides the most useful ones, Aggregate Operations.
As an example, take our “IFilter” functional interface. With it, you can build a “filter” function:
Collection filter(Collection c, IFilter filter) { … } which is one of these Aggregate Operations. The Stream class defines it and many others as member functions, making them even easier to compose through chaining.
I just want to give you an hint on how they are used for complex collections processing.
Do you want to get all the big tar files, open them, print every word in each text file you find inside?
files.filter(f -> f.getTotalSize() > 100 && isTar(f)).
flatMap(f -> openTarStream(f).getEntries()).
filter(entry -> isText(entry.getFile()).
flatMap(entry -> ReadAllLines(entry.getFile())).
flatMap(line -> Stream.of(line.split(" "))).
forEach(word -> System.out.println(word))Compact, clean.
Now try to do it in Java 7... look at the indentation! It is easy to get lost in the mechanics of collection handling.
We only scratched the surface of what can be done with lambdas; together with aggregate operations and generics, they are a very powerful tool that will make most of the data transformation operations easy. And they are very efficient too! But this is something for another post.