Hidden Features of Java

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After reading Hidden Features of C# I开发者_JS百科 wondered, What are some of the hidden features of Java?

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Double Brace Initialization took me by surprise a few months ago when I first discovered it, never heard of it before.

ThreadLocals are typically not so widely known as a way to store per-thread state.

Since JDK 1.5 Java has had extremely well implemented and robust concurrency tools beyond just locks, they live in java.util.concurrent and a specifically interesting example is the java.util.concurrent.atomic subpackage that contains thread-safe primitives that implement the compare-and-swap operation and can map to actual native hardware-supported versions of these operations.

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Joint union in type parameter variance:

public class Baz<T extends Foo & Bar> {}

For example, if you wanted to take a parameter that's both Comparable and a Collection:

public static <A, B extends Collection<A> & Comparable<B>>
boolean foo(B b1, B b2, A a) {
   return (b1.compareTo(b2) == 0) || b1.contains(a) || b2.contains(a);
}

This contrived method returns true if the two given collections are equal or if either one of them contains the given element, otherwise false. The point to notice is that you can invoke methods of both Comparable and Collection on the arguments b1 and b2.

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I was surprised by instance initializers the other day. I was deleting some code-folded methods and ended up creating multiple instance initializers :

public class App {
    public App(String name) { System.out.println(name + "'s constructor called"); }

    static { System.out.println("static initializer called"); }

    { System.out.println("instance initializer called"); }

    static { System.out.println("static initializer2 called"); }

    { System.out.println("instance initializer2 called"); }

    public static void main( String[] args ) {
        new App("one");
        new App("two");
  }
}

Executing the main method will display:

static initializer called
static initializer2 called
instance initializer called
instance initializer2 called
one's constructor called
instance initializer called
instance initializer2 called
two's constructor called

I guess these would be useful if you had multiple constructors and needed common code

They also provide syntactic sugar for initializing your classes:

List<Integer> numbers = new ArrayList<Integer>(){{ add(1); add(2); }};

Map<String,String> codes = new HashMap<String,String>(){{ 
  put("1","one"); 
  put("2","two");
}};

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JDK 1.6_07+ contains an app called VisualVM (bin/jvisualvm.exe) that is a nice GUI on top of many of the tools. It seems more comprehensive than JConsole.

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Classpath wild cards since Java 6.

java -classpath ./lib/* so.Main

Instead of

java -classpath ./lib/log4j.jar:./lib/commons-codec.jar:./lib/commons-httpclient.jar:./lib/commons-collections.jar:./lib/myApp.jar so.Main

See http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/tools/windows/classpath.html

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For most people I interview for Java developer positions labeled blocks are very surprising. Here is an example:

// code goes here

getmeout:{
    for (int i = 0; i < N; ++i) {
        for (int j = i; j < N; ++j) {
            for (int k = j; k < N; ++k) {
                //do something here
                break getmeout;
            }
        }
    }
}

Who said goto in java is just a keyword? :)

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How about covariant return types which have been in place since JDK 1.5? It is pretty poorly publicised, as it is an unsexy addition, but as I understand it, is absolutely necessary for generics to work.

Essentially, the compiler now allows a subclass to narrow the return type of an overridden method to be a subclass of the original method's return type. So this is allowed:

class Souper {
    Collection<String> values() {
        ...
    }
}

class ThreadSafeSortedSub extends Souper {
    @Override
    ConcurrentSkipListSet<String> values() {
        ...
    }
}

You can call the subclass's values method and obtain a sorted thread safe Set of Strings without having to down cast to the ConcurrentSkipListSet.

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Transfer of control in a finally block throws away any exception. The following code does not throw RuntimeException -- it is lost.

public static void doSomething() {
    try {
      //Normally you would have code that doesn't explicitly appear 
      //to throw exceptions so it would be harder to see the problem.
      throw new RuntimeException();
    } finally {
      return;
    }
  }

From http://jamesjava.blogspot.com/2006/03/dont-return-in-finally-clause.html

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Haven't seen anyone mention instanceof being implemented in such a way that checking for null is not necessary.

Instead of:

if( null != aObject && aObject instanceof String )
{
    ...
}

just use:

if( aObject instanceof String )
{
    ...
}

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Allowing methods and constructors in enums surprised me. For example:

enum Cats {
  FELIX(2), SHEEBA(3), RUFUS(7);

  private int mAge;
  Cats(int age) {
    mAge = age;
  }
  public int getAge() {
    return mAge;
   }
}

You can even have a "constant specific class body" which allows a specific enum value to override methods.

More documentation here.

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The type params for generic methods can be specified explicitly like so:

Collections.<String,Integer>emptyMap()

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You can use enums to implement an interface.

public interface Room {
   public Room north();
   public Room south();
   public Room east();
   public Room west();
}

public enum Rooms implements Room {
   FIRST {
      public Room north() {
         return SECOND;
      }
   },
   SECOND {
      public Room south() {
         return FIRST;
      }
   }

   public Room north() { return null; }
   public Room south() { return null; }
   public Room east() { return null; }
   public Room west() { return null; }
}

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EDIT: Years later....

I use this feature here

public enum AffinityStrategies implements AffinityStrategy {

https://github.com/peter-lawrey/Java-Thread-Affinity/blob/master/src/main/java/vanilla/java/affinity/AffinityStrategies.java

By using an interface, developers can define their own strategies. Using an enum means I can define a collection (of five) built in ones.

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As of Java 1.5, Java now has a much cleaner syntax for writing functions of variable arity. So, instead of just passing an array, now you can do the following

public void foo(String... bars) {
   for (String bar: bars)
      System.out.println(bar);
}

bars is automatically converted to array of the specified type. Not a huge win, but a win nonetheless.

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My favorite: dump all thread stack traces to standard out.

windows: CTRL-Break in your java cmd/console window

unix: kill -3 PID

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A couple of people have posted about instance initializers, here's a good use for it:

Map map = new HashMap() {{
    put("a key", "a value");
    put("another key", "another value");
}};

Is a quick way to initialize maps if you're just doing something quick and simple.

Or using it to create a quick swing frame prototype:

JFrame frame = new JFrame();

JPanel panel = new JPanel(); 

panel.add( new JLabel("Hey there"){{ 
    setBackground(Color.black);
    setForeground( Color.white);
}});

panel.add( new JButton("Ok"){{
    addActionListener( new ActionListener(){
        public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent ae ){
            System.out.println("Button pushed");
        }
     });
 }});


 frame.add( panel );

Of course it can be abused:

    JFrame frame = new JFrame(){{
         add( new JPanel(){{
               add( new JLabel("Hey there"){{ 
                    setBackground(Color.black);
                    setForeground( Color.white);
                }});

                add( new JButton("Ok"){{
                    addActionListener( new ActionListener(){
                        public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent ae ){
                            System.out.println("Button pushed");
                        }
                     });
                 }});
        }});
    }};

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Dynamic proxies (added in 1.3) allow you to define a new type at runtime that conforms to an interface. It's come in handy a surprising number of times.

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final initialization can be postponed.

It makes sure that even with a complex flow of logic return values are always set. It's too easy to miss a case and return null by accident. It doesn't make returning null impossible, just obvious that it's on purpose:

public Object getElementAt(int index) {
    final Object element;
    if (index == 0) {
         element = "Result 1";
    } else if (index == 1) {
         element = "Result 2";
    } else {
         element = "Result 3";
    }
    return element;
}

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I think another "overlooked" feature of java is the JVM itself. It is probably the best VM available. And it supports lots of interesting and useful languages (Jython, JRuby, Scala, Groovy). All those languages can easily and seamlessly cooperate.

If you design a new language (like in the scala-case) you immediately have all the existing libraries available and your language is therefore "useful" from the very beginning.

All those languages make use of the HotSpot optimizations. The VM is very well monitor and debuggable.

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You can define an anonymous subclass and directly call a method on it even if it implements no interfaces.

new Object() {
  void foo(String s) {
    System.out.println(s);
  }
}.foo("Hello");

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The asList method in java.util.Arrays allows a nice combination of varargs, generic methods and autoboxing:

List<Integer> ints = Arrays.asList(1,2,3);

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Using this keyword for accessing fields/methods of containing class from an inner class. In below, rather contrived example, we want to use sortAscending field of container class from the anonymous inner class. Using ContainerClass.this.sortAscending instead of this.sortAscending does the trick.

import java.util.Comparator;

public class ContainerClass {
boolean sortAscending;
public Comparator createComparator(final boolean sortAscending){
    Comparator comparator = new Comparator<Integer>() {

        public int compare(Integer o1, Integer o2) {
            if (sortAscending || ContainerClass.this.sortAscending) {
                return o1 - o2;
            } else {
                return o2 - o1;
            }
        }

    };
    return comparator;
}
}

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Not really a feature, but an amusing trick I discovered recently in some Web page:

class Example
{
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    System.out.println("Hello World!");
    http://Phi.Lho.free.fr

    System.exit(0);
  }
}

is a valid Java program (although it generates a warning). If you don't see why, see Gregory's answer! ;-) Well, syntax highlighting here also gives a hint!

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This is not exactly "hidden features" and not very useful, but can be extremely interesting in some cases:
Class sun.misc.Unsafe - will allow you to implement direct memory management in Java (you can even write self-modifying Java code with this if you try a lot):

public class UnsafeUtil {

    public static Unsafe unsafe;
    private static long fieldOffset;
    private static UnsafeUtil instance = new UnsafeUtil();

    private Object obj;

    static {
        try {
            Field f = Unsafe.class.getDeclaredField("theUnsafe");
            f.setAccessible(true);

            unsafe = (Unsafe)f.get(null);
            fieldOffset = unsafe.objectFieldOffset(UnsafeUtil.class.getDeclaredField("obj"));
        } catch (Exception e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }
    };
}

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When working in Swing I like the hidden Ctrl - Shift - F1 feature.

It dumps the component tree of the current window.
(Assuming you have not bound that keystroke to something else.)

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Every class file starts with the hex value 0xCAFEBABE to identify it as valid JVM bytecode.

(Explanation)

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My vote goes to java.util.concurrent with its concurrent collections and flexible executors allowing among others thread pools, scheduled tasks and coordinated tasks. The DelayQueue is my personal favorite, where elements are made available after a specified delay.

java.util.Timer and TimerTask may safely be put to rest.

Also, not exactly hidden but in a different package from the other classes related to date and time. java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit is useful when converting between nanoseconds, microseconds, milliseconds and seconds.

It reads a lot better than the usual someValue * 1000 or someValue / 1000.

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Language-level assert keyword.

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Not really part of the Java language, but the javap disassembler which comes with Sun's JDK is not widely known or used.

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The addition of the for-each loop construct in 1.5. I <3 it.

// For each Object, instantiated as foo, in myCollection
for(Object foo: myCollection) {
  System.out.println(foo.toString());
}

And can be used in nested instances:

for (Suit suit : suits)
  for (Rank rank : ranks)
    sortedDeck.add(new Card(suit, rank));

The for-each construct is also applicable to arrays, where it hides the index variable rather than the iterator. The following method returns the sum of the values in an int array:

// Returns the sum of the elements of a
int sum(int[] a) {
  int result = 0;
  for (int i : a)
    result += i;
  return result;
}

Link to the Sun documentation

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i personally discovered java.lang.Void very late -- improves code readability in conjunction with generics, e.g. Callable<Void>