What is grammar sugar?
Syntactic Sugar is a design concept in programming languages that refers to providing a more concise and readable representation of certain operations at the syntactic level. This representation method does not add language features, but only makes the code simpler, more intuitive, and easier for developers to understand and maintain.
The function of grammar sugar:
Improving code readability: Grammar sugar can make code more in line with natural language or developer thinking, making it easier to understand.
Reduce template code: Syntax sugar can reduce duplicate template code, allowing developers to focus more on business logic.
Reduce error rate: Simplified syntax can reduce the amount of code, thereby reducing the probability of errors.
Therefore, syntactic sugar is not unique to the Java language. It is a syntax feature in many programming language designs that makes code more concise and easy to read, but does not introduce new functionality or capabilities.
So, what are the syntactic sugars in Java?
Java syntax sugar
1. Automatic boxing and unpacking
Autoboxing and Unboxing are features introduced in Java 5 for automatically converting between basic data types and their corresponding wrapper classes.
2. Enhanced for Loop
Enhanced for loops (also known as for each loops) are used to traverse arrays or collections.
3. Generic
Generics enable classes, interfaces, and methods to manipulate objects of specified types, providing type safe checks and eliminating the need for type conversions.
4. Variable parameters
Varargs allow passing any number of parameters in a method.
5. try-with-resources
The try with resources statement is used to automatically close resources, and resources that implement the AutoLoseable interface will be automatically closed at the end of the statement.
6. Lambda expression
Lambda expressions are a feature introduced in Java 8 that allows for the use of more concise syntax to implement functional interfaces (interfaces with only one abstract method).
7. Method citation
Method References is a shorthand form of Lambda expression used to directly reference existing methods.
8. String connection
Starting from Java 5, the Java compiler will optimize string concatenation as a StringBuilder operation.
9. Switch expression
The Switch expression introduced in Java 12 makes the Switch statement more concise and flexible.
10. Type Inference
Java 10 introduced local variable type inference, which declares variables using the var keyword, and the compiler automatically infers the type of the variable.
These syntactic sugars make Java code more concise and easy to read, but it should be noted that they do not add functionality to the language itself, but rather simplify and encapsulate existing functionality.
summary
In this article, we introduced some syntax candies in the Java language. From the above examples, it can be seen that Java syntax candies are only simplified syntax that can make code more concise and easy to read, without adding new features themselves.