JAVA 8 Extract predicates as fields or methods?

Question

What is the cleaner way of extracting predicates which will have multiple uses. Methods or Class fields?

The two examples:

1.Class Field

void someMethod() {
    IntStream.range(1, 100)
        .filter(isOverFifty)
        .forEach(System.out::println);
}

private IntPredicate isOverFifty = number -> number > 50;

2.Method

void someMethod() {
    IntStream.range(1, 100)
        .filter(isOverFifty())
        .forEach(System.out::println);
} 

private IntPredicate isOverFifty() {
    return number -> number > 50;
}

For me, the field way looks a little bit nicer, but is this the right way? I have my doubts.

Answer 1

Generally you cache things that are expensive to create and these stateless lambdas are not. A stateless lambda will have a single instance created for the entire pipeline (under the current implementation). The first invocation is the most expensive one - the underlying Predicate implementation class will be created and linked; but this happens only once for both stateless and stateful lambdas.

A stateful lambda will use a different instance for each element and it might make sense to cache those, but your example is stateless, so I would not.

If you still want that (for reading purposes I assume), I would do it in a class Predicates let's assume. It would be re-usable across different classes as well, something like this:

 public final class Predicates {
     private Predicates(){
     }

     public static IntPredicate isOverFifty() {
          return number -> number > 50;
     }
 } 

You should also notice that the usage of Predicates.isOverFifty inside a Stream and x -> x > 50 while semantically the same, will have different memory usages.

In the first case, only a single instance (and class) will be created and served to all clients; while the second (x -> x > 50) will create not only a different instance, but also a different class for each of it's clients (think the same expression used in different places inside your application). This happens because the linkage happens per CallSite - and in the second case the CallSite is always different.

But that is something you should not rely on (and probably even consider) - these Objects and classes are fast to build and fast to remove by the GC - whatever fits your needs - use that.

Answer 2

To answer, it's better If you expand those lambda expressions for old fashioned Java. You can see now, these are two ways we used in our codes. So, the answer is, it all depends how you write a particular code segment.

private IntPredicate isOverFifty = new IntPredicate<Integer>(){

 public void test(number){
  return number > 50;
 }

};


private IntPredicate isOverFifty() {
    return new IntPredicate<Integer>(){

          public void test(number){
             return number > 50;
          }

   };
}

Answer 3

1) For field case you will have always allocated predicate for each new your object. Not a big deal if you have a few instances, likes, service. But if this is a value object which can be N, this is not good solution. Also keep in mind that someMethod() may not be called at all. One of possible solution is to make predicate as static field.

2) For method case you will create the predicate once every time for someMethod() call. After GC will discard it.