Functional Programming brings new and interesting paradigms to Java code development.
I am not saying that functional programming is a new concept, OK?
Several of those languages (Scala, Clojure) run on top of a Java VM, but Java itself is NOT as functional programming language..., how is that possible, there must be a way!
One of the aspects of the functional programming languages is this possibility to use a pointer on a function as a parameter.
Here is a possible approach, even easier to access since the diamond notation has been implemented in the recent versions of the Java language.
We are going to use a simple example as an illustration. We will choose the function to execute, based on the value of a parameter. What we want to do here is to greet someone in the language passed as a parameter.
- Note:
- Only for the clarity of the code, we are not using here the usual Java convention for the diamond notation (T for Type, E for Element, K for Key, V for Value, N for Number, S, U, V, etc, for 2nd, 3rd, 4th,... types).
Let us consider a first Java interface defined as follow:
package functions;
public interface FunctionOneArgReturnVoid<SomeType>
{
public void execute(SomeType a);
}
And let us write the following implementation:
package functions;
public class ImplementationSampleOne
{
FunctionOneArgReturnVoid<String> funcEnglish =
new FunctionOneArgReturnVoid<String>()
{
public void execute(String s)
{
System.out.println("Hello " + s + "!");
}
};
FunctionOneArgReturnVoid<String> funcFrench =
new FunctionOneArgReturnVoid<String>()
{
public void execute(String s)
{
System.out.println("Bonjour " + s + " !");
}
};
public FunctionOneArgReturnVoid<String> getFunction(String lng)
{
if ("FR".equalsIgnoreCase(lng))
return funcFrench;
else
return funcEnglish;
}
public void execute(FunctionOneArgReturnVoid<String> func, String arg)
{
func.execute(arg);
}
public static void main(String[] args)
{
String lng = "EN";
if (args.length > 0)
lng = args[0];
ImplementationSampleOne impl = new ImplementationSampleOne();
impl.execute(impl.getFunction(lng), "Joe Shmow");
}
}
See the two implementations of the FunctionOneArgReturnVoid interface, and the way they are invoked in the main method.
The typography rules are not the same in English and French. In French you need a space before a '!'.
The execution would look like this:
Prompt> java functions.ImplementationSampleOne "FR"
Bonjour Joe Shmow !
Prompt> java functions.ImplementationSampleOne "EN"
Hello Joe Shmow!
The return type can be also described by an interface:
package functions;
public interface FunctionTwoArgsReturnType<SomeTypeOne,
SomeTypeTwo,
ReturnType>
{
public ReturnType execute(SomeTypeOne a, SomeTypeTwo b);
}
The interface implementation would look like this:
FunctionTwoArgsReturnType<String, String, String> funcEnglish =
new FunctionTwoArgsReturnType<String, String, String>()
{
public String execute(String a, String b)
{
return "Hello " + a + ", from " + b + "!";
}
};
FunctionTwoArgsReturnType<String, String, String> funcFrench =
new FunctionTwoArgsReturnType<String, String, String>()
{
public String execute(String a, String b)
{
String s = "Bonjour " + a + ", de la part ";
if (b.toUpperCase().toCharArray()[0] == 'A' ||
b.toUpperCase().toCharArray()[0] == 'E' ||
b.toUpperCase().toCharArray()[0] == 'I' ||
b.toUpperCase().toCharArray()[0] == 'O' ||
b.toUpperCase().toCharArray()[0] == 'U' ||
b.toUpperCase().toCharArray()[0] == 'Y')
s += ("d'" + b);
else
s += ("de " + b);
s += " !";
return s;
}
};
The main like that:
public static void main(String[] args)
{
String lng = "EN";
if (args.length > 0)
lng = args[0];
ImplementationSampleTwo impl = new ImplementationSampleTwo();
String greeting = impl.execute(impl.getFunction(lng), "Joe Shmow", "Olivier");
System.out.println(greeting);
greeting = impl.execute(impl.getFunction(lng), "Joe Shmow", "Mr X");
System.out.println(greeting);
}
The output would become
Prompt> java functions.ImplementationSampleTwo "EN"
Hello Joe Shmow, from Olivier!
Hello Joe Shmow, from Mr X!
Prompt> java functions.ImplementationSampleTwo "FR"
Bonjour Joe Shmow, de la part d'Olivier !
Bonjour Joe Shmow, de la part de Mr X !
The complexity is isolated in the implementation of the function. The code using it does not need to know anything about it.
This possibility of using pointers on functions does not make Java a functional programming language, but this is a first step towards it.
