Java 7 features

 Java 7 features

1. Automatic resource management with try-with-resources

Before java 7, we had to use finally blocks to cleanup the resources. Finally blocks were not mandatory, but resource clean up was to prevent the system from being corrupt. With java 7, there is no need to explicit resource cleanup. Its done automatically. Automatic resource cleanup is done when initializing resource in try-with-resources block (try(…) {…}).

Cleanup happens because of new interface AutoCloseable. Its close method is invoked by JVM as soon as try block finishes. You are not supposed to call close() method in your code. This should be called automatically bu JVM. Calling it manually may cause unexpected results.

public class ResourceManagementInJava7 {     public static void main(String[] args)     {         try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader("C:/temp/test.txt")))         {             String sCurrentLine;             while ((sCurrentLine = br.readLine()) != null)             {                 System.out.println(sCurrentLine);             }         }         catch (IOException e)         {             e.printStackTrace();         }     } }

2. Binary Literals with prefix “0b”

In java 7 features, we have literal values in binary with prefix ‘0b’ (or ‘0B’) for integral types (byte, short, int and long). Before JDK 7, you can only use octal values (with prefix ‘0’) or hexadecimal values (with prefix ‘0x’ or ‘0X’). e.g.

int sameVarOne = 0b01010000101; or if use the number formatting feature as well. int sameVarTwo = 0B01_010_000_101;

3. NIO 2.0

Java SE 7, introduced java.nio.file package and its related package, java.nio.file.attribute, provide comprehensive support for file I/O and for accessing the default file system. Path class has been a big addition which allow you to represent any path in operating system in uniform way. New APIS's complements older one and provides several useful method checking. deleting, copying, and moving files. You can also create symbolic links and hard links like in Linux. JDK 7 new file API is also capable of searching for files using wild cards/Regex. You also get support to watch a directory for changes.

 Java 7 features

Exception handling improvements

Java 7 has brought some nice enhancements in exception handling as well. These can be broadly divided into two features:

4. Suppressed exceptions

Suppressed exceptions, as name suggest, are exceptions thrown in the code but were ignored somehow. If you remember try-catch-finally block execution sequence and how they return any value or exceptions, you will recall that exceptions thrown in finally block are suppressed is exception is thrown in try block also. Before java 7, you was informed about these exceptions by logging if implemented, but you didn’t have any control over these types of exceptions once finally block is over. With new features in java 7 you got control over these suppressed exceptions as well.

A example usage is below:

public class SuppressedExceptionDemoWithTryFinallyNew {     /**     * Executable member function demonstrating suppressed exceptions     * Suppressed expression is added back in primary exception     */     public static void memberFunction() throws Exception     {         Throwable th = null;         DirtyResource resource= new DirtyResource();         try         {               resource.accessResource();         }         catch(Exception e)         {             th = e;             throw e;         }         finally         {             try             {                 resource.close();             }             catch(Exception e)             {                 if(th != null)                 {                     e.addSuppressed(th); //Add to primary exception                     throw e;                 }             }         }     }    /**     * Executable function demonstrating suppressed exceptions.     */    public static void main(String[] arguments) throws Exception    {       try       {           memberFunction();       }       catch(Exception ex)       {           err.println("Exception encountered: " + ex.toString());           final Throwable[] suppressedExceptions = ex.getSuppressed();           final int numSuppressed = suppressedExceptions.length;           if (numSuppressed > 0)           {               err.println("tThere are " + numSuppressed + " suppressed exceptions:");               for (final Throwable exception : suppressedExceptions)               {                   err.println("tt" + exception.toString());               }           }       }    } } Output: Exception encountered: java.lang.NullPointerException: Remember me. I am your worst nightmare !! I am Null pointer exception !!     There are 1 suppressed exceptions:         java.lang.RuntimeException: I wanted to access this resource. Bad luck. Its dirty resource !!!

5. Catch Multiple Exceptions in catch block

In this feature, now you can catch multiple exceptions in single catch block. Before java 7, you was restricted to catch only one. To specify the list of expected exceptions a pipe (‘|’) character is used.

Lets understand using an example.

try {        //Do some processing which throws NullPointerException; I am sending directly        throw new NullPointerException(); } //You can catch multiple exception added after 'pipe' character catch(NullPointerException | IndexOutOfBoundsException ex) {        throw ex; }

Remember: If a catch block handles more than one exception type, then the catch parameter is implicitly final. In this example, the catch parameter ex is final and therefore you cannot assign any values to it within the catch block.

6. Number formatting enhancement

If you have to read a number “1000000“, then how much convenient it read in first site. Not much, right?? We have a habit of reading numbers in 10,00,000 format. Good news is that java has started supporting to write numbers in this format. Well, not exactly this but a matching format.

Now you can write above number like this : 10_00_000. Good enough, Isn’t it??

/**  * Supported in int  * */ int improvedInt = 10_00_000; /**  * Supported in float  * */ float improvedFloat = 10_00_000f; /**  * Supported in long  * */ float improvedLong = 10_00_000l; /**  * Supported in double  * */ float improvedDouble = 10_00_000;

7. String class support in switch statement

If you remember the switch statement before java 7, it supported only int and enum types. Now with java 7 release, support for String class has also been added. Lets see using an example.

switch (token) {     case ("one"):         return "Token one identified";     case ("two"):         return "Token one identified";     case ("three"):         return "Token one identified";     case ("four"):         return "Token one identified";     default:         return "No token was identified"; }

8. Improved type Inference

Before java 7, while using generics you had to supply type parameters to variables types and to their actual types. Now, it has been relieved a bit in this new java 7 feature, and a blank diamond on right side of declaration will work fine.

Compiler is smart enough in java 7 to identify that blank diamond infer to type defined on left hand side of declaration.

public class ElvisOperatorTest {     public static void main(String[] args) {         @SuppressWarnings("unused")         Map params = new HashMap<>();     } }

  9. ForkJoin Framework

The effective use of parallel cores in a Java program has always been a challenge. There were few home-grown frameworks that would distribute the work across multiple cores and then join them to return the result set. Java 7 has incorporated this feature as a Fork and Join framework.

Basically the Fork-Join breaks the task at hand into mini-tasks until the mini-task is simple enough that it can be solved without further breakups. It’s like a divide-and-conquer algorithm. One important concept to note in this framework is that ideally no worker thread is idle. They implement a work-stealing algorithm in that idle workers steal the work from those workers who are busy.

It’s based on the work of Doug Lea, a thought leader on Java concurrency. Fork/Join deals with the threading hassles; you just indicate to the framework which portions of the work can be broken apart and handled recursively. It employs pseudo-code (as taken from Doug Lea’s paper on the subject):

Result solve(Problem problem) {
 if (problem is small)
  directly solve problem
 else {
  split problem into independent parts
  fork new subtasks to solve each part
  join all subtasks
  compose result from subresults
 }
}

10. Automatic reloading with WatchService

Every application has some configuration which is expected to be refreshed on every change in configuration file. Past approaches to solve this problem had consisted of having a Thread, which periodically poll for file change based on ‘last update time stamp’ of configuration file.

Now with java 7, things have changed. Java 7 has introduced an excellent feature: WatchService. A WatchService is JDKs internal service which watches for changes on registered objects. These registered objects are necessarily the instances of Watchable interface. When registering the watchable instance with WatchService, we need to specify the kind of change events we are interested in.

11. G1 Garbage Collector

Java 7 features introduced a new Garbage Collector known as G1 Garbage Collection, which is short form of garbage first. G1 garbage collector performs clean-up where there is most garbage. To achieve this it split Java heap memory into multiple regions as opposed to 3 regions in the prior to Java 7 version (new, old and perm-gen space). G1 is quite predictable and provides greater through put for memory intensive applications.

Today's inspirational quote:

"The purpose of technology is not to confuse the brain but to serve the body "

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