Book Image

Learning Java Lambdas

By : Toby Weston
Book Image

Learning Java Lambdas

By: Toby Weston

Overview of this book

In this short book, we take an in-depth look at lambdas in Java, and their supporting features. The book covers essential topics, such as functional interfaces and type inference, and the key differences between lambdas and closures. You will learn about the background to functional programming and lambdas, before moving on to understanding the basic syntax of lambdas and what differentiates these anonymous functions from standard anonymous classes. Lastly, you'll learn how to invoke lambdas and look at the bytecode generated. After reading this book, you'll understand lambdas in depth, their background, syntax, implementation details, and how and when to use them. You'll also have a clear knowledge of the difference between functions and classes, and why that's relevant to lambdas. This knowledge will enable you to appreciate the improvements to type inference that drive a lot of the new features in modern Java, and will increase your understanding of method references and scoping.
Table of Contents (10 chapters)

Preface

What this book covers

This book takes an in-depth look at lambdas and their supporting features; things like functional interfaces and type inference.

After reading the book, you'll:

  • Have an overview of new features in modern Java

  • Understand lambdas in-depth, their background, syntax, implementation details and how and when to use them

  • Understand the difference between functions to classes and why that's relevant to lambdas

  • Understand the difference between lambdas and closures

  • Appreciate the improvements to type inference that drive a lot of the new features

  • Be able to use method references and understand scoping and "effectively final"

  • Understand the differences in bytecode produced when using lambdas

  • Be able to reason about exceptions and exception handling best practice when using lambdas

What you need for this book

The latest version of JDK and a text editor or IDE.

Who this book is for

Whether you're migrating legacy Java programs to a more modern Java style or building applications from scratch, this book will help you start to leverage the power of functional programming on the Java platform.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of text styles that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles are shown as follows: "This LISP expression evaluates to a function, that when applied will take a single argument, bind it to arg and then add 1 to it."

A block of code is set as follows:

void anonymousClass() {
    final Server server = new HttpServer();
    waitFor(new Condition() {
        @Override
        public Boolean isSatisfied() {
            return !server.isRunning();
        }
    });
}

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

void anonymousClass() {
    final Server server = new HttpServer();
    waitFor(new Condition() {
        @Override
        public Boolean isSatisfied() {
            return !server.isRunning();
        }
    });
}

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, for example, in menus or dialog boxes, appear in the text like this: "In order to download new modules, we will go to FilesSettings | Project Name | Project Interpreter."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Reader feedback

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Customer support

Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.

Downloading the color images of this book

We also provide you with a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. The color images will help you better understand the changes in the output. You can download this file from https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/LearningJavaLambdas_ColorImages.pdf.

Errata

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To view the previously submitted errata, go to https://www.packtpub.com/books/content/support and enter the name of the book in the search field. The required information will appear under the Errata section.

Piracy

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Questions

If you have a problem with any aspect of this book, you can contact us at [email protected], and we will do our best to address the problem.