With the rise of lambda expression and newer features, there is an increasing necessity to review some of the functional programming concepts and how are they applied in Java.
Currying
Currying is the process of turning a function with multiple arguments into a function with fewer arguments. For example, we can turn an addition between three numbers into a single argument function:
Function<Integer, Function<Integer, Function<Integer, Integer>>> abc = a -> b -> c -> a + b + c;
assert abc.apply(1).apply(2).apply(3) == 6;
Which is fun, but is it really useful? Definitely! Sometimes we don’t want to repeat the same argument and cannot overload the method (to simulate default parameter):
String buildUrl(String protocol, String base) {
return protocol + "://" + base;
}
//...
Function<String, String> secureUrlFun = base -> buildUrl("https", base);
Function<String, String> unsecureUrlFun = base -> buildUrl("http", base);
assert secureUrlFun.apply("adrian.md").equals("https://adrian.md");
assert unsecureUrlFun.apply("adrian.md").equals("http://adrian.md");
Higher-order function
Function<String, String> buildSafeUrl() {
return base -> buildUrl("https", base);
}
In the previous example, buildUrl is also called first-order while buildSafeUrl - higher-order function. The definition of later one says that it should have at least one function as an argument or return a function. This opens a whole new world of possibilities, like lazy evaluation, code reuse, and function composition.
Let’s imagine we have the following structure of records / classes:
record Plug(String type) {
}
record Engine(Plug plug) {
}
record Car(Engine engine) {
}
And we are given the classic boring task of extracting type from a car object. The problem is that we might have a null at any level.
A naive engineer could slap an Optional and call it a day:
String plugType = Optional.of(new Car(null))
.map(Car::engine)
.map(Engine::plug)
.map(Plug::type)
.orElse(null);
assert plugType == null;
Spoiler alert, it’s wrong to use Optional. The only valid usage of Optional is as a return value in a method as confirmed by API note from JavaDoc. Not to mention that we didn’t create disposable wrapper objects for null check before Java 8 and there is no reason whatsoever to do these days.
We can solve this task by creating a null safe (higher-order) function:
interface NullSafeFunction<T, R> extends Function<T, R> {
default <V> NullSafeFunction<T, V> andThen(Function<? super R, ? extends V> after) {
return (T t) -> {
R result = apply(t);
if(result != null) {
return after.apply(result);
}
return null;
};
}
static <T> NullSafeFunction<T, T> identity() {
return t -> t;
}
}
//...
String nullPlugType = NullSafeFunction.<Car>identity()
.andThen(Car::engine)
.andThen(Engine::plug)
.andThen(Plug::type)
.apply(new Car(null));
assert nullPlugType == null;
String sparkPlugType = NullSafeFunction.<Car>identity()
.andThen(Car::engine)
.andThen(Engine::plug)
.andThen(Plug::type)
.apply(new Car(new Engine(new Plug("spark plug"))));
assert sparkPlugType.equals("spark plug");
Breaking down the example, we can see that NullSafeFunction::andThen returns a composed function that executes the caller first and then the argument.
To Be Continued …