What's the difference between instance method reference types in Java 8?
So Java 8 introduces method references and the docs describe the four types.
My question is what's the difference between the two instance types?
- Reference to an instance method of a particular object.
- Reference to an instance method of an arbitrary object of a particular type.
Both refer to references but what's significantly different? Is it that the type inference used to resolve them is different? Is it significant that (in their examples) one is a closure and the other is a lambda? Is it something to do with the number of arguments on a method?
-
myString::charAt
would take anint
and return achar
, and might be used for any lambda that works that way. It translates, essentially, toindex -> myString.charAt(index)
. -
String::length
would take aString
and return anint
. It translates, essentially, tostring -> string.length()
. -
String::charAt
would translate to(string, index) -> string.charAt(index)
.
With this they mean that you have the following:
1) Can be for example this::someFunction;
, this will return the someFunction
reference of the current object.
2) Can be for example String::toUpperCase
, this will return the toUpperCase
method of String
in general.
I am not sure if there is an actual difference in behaviour, I think it is just like you can also call static methods on instance variables.