experiments with groovy

In my constant task to hone and resharpen my tools, I’ve started some experiments with groovy.

Groovy is a scripting language which runs on top of the JVM like Jython or jRuby. But unlike other scripting languages, groovy classes are full-blown Java classes and can be used within plain Java. Also, any Java package can be used in groovy without writing bridges and stuff.

Also it seems that groovy fits my python and coffee-script infested brain better than the more modern and hip cousins clojure and scala.

This looks pretty readable to me!

classes, closures, iterators – oh my

groovy is fully OO – grok this:

def map = [:]

map.some_key = "value"
map.another_key = "foo"
map["yet another key"] = "bar"

map.each { item ->
	println "$item.key => $item.value"
}

// implicit maps
def errors = [ EINVAL: -1, ENOSPC: -3, EPROTO: -42] // just some example
println errors.EINVAL  // -1

The block enclosed in curly braces is a closure. They’re objects, too:

// a closure
def closure = { a, b -> a + b }

// let's call it
println closure.call(1, 2)  // 3

// same, less verbose
println closure(1, 2)  // 3

// we can also accept a closure as a parameter
def when(condition, closure) {
	if (condition)
		closure()
}

when (4<5) {
	println "yay!"
}

def local = 2
def test = { x -> local + x }

println "test(2) => ${test(2)}" // test(2) => 4
local = 3
println "test(2) => ${test(2)}" // test(2) => 5

def test2 = { x ->
	def local2 = x
	return { k -> k + local2 }
}

def test_2 = test2(2)
def test_3 = test2(3)

println "test_2(2) => ${test_2(2)}" // test_2(2) => 4
println "test_3(2) => ${test_3(2)}" // test_3(2) => 5

Another nice thing is how classes are defined and how groovy creates automatic constructors:

// a simple class.   Note that we do not define a constructor.
class Person {
	public String name
	public Integer age
}

def anonymous = new Person()
def stefan    = new Person( name: "Stefan", age: 38)
def fritz     = new Person( name: "Fritz")

println "${stefan.name} is ${stefan.age} years old." // stefan is 38 years old.
println "${fritz.name} is ${fritz.age} years old." // fritz is null years old.

stefan.age = 35 // no setters and getters needed!
println "${stefan.name} is ${stefan.age} years old." // stefan is 35 years old.

// coerce a map to a class.  Will call named-arg automatic ctor
def maja = [name:"Maja", age:8] as Person
println "${maja.name} is ${maja.age} years old." // maja is 8 years old.

Notice how we did not need to specify getter and setter methods. Also notice how groovy uses named arguments!

What’s next?

Well. Next up, I’ll try to get some PDMlink stuff working with groovy.

Links

You can find groovy documentation at codehaus. There’s also a zone over at dzone.

There’s also a API documentation of the groovy JDK.