System.out.println(new Object() {
@Override public String toString() {
return "Hello world!";
}
}); // prints "Hello world!"
This is not very useful as it is, but it shows how to create an instance of an anonymous inner class that extends Object and @Override its toString() method.
Anonymous inner classes are very handy when you need to implement an interface which may not be highly reusable (and therefore not worth refactoring to its own named class). An instructive example is using a custom java.util.Comparator<T> for sorting.
Here's an example of how you can sort a String[] based on String.length().
import java.util.*;
//...
String[] arr = { "xxx", "cd", "ab", "z" };
Arrays.sort(arr, new Comparator<String>() {
@Override public int compare(String s1, String s2) {
return s1.length() - s2.length();
}
});
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(arr));
// prints "[z, cd, ab, xxx]"
Note the comparison-by-subtraction trick used here. It should be said that this technique is broken in general: it's only applicable when you can guarantee that it will not overflow (such is the case with String lengths).
Anonymous inner classes implementing or extending the interface of an existing type has been done in other answers, although it is worth noting that multiple methods can be implemented (often with JavaBean-style events, for instance).
A little recognised feature is that although anonymous inner classes don't have a name, they do have a type. New methods can be added to the interface. These methods can only be invoked in limited cases. Chiefly directly on the new expression itself and within the class (including instance initialisers). It might confuse beginners, but it can be "interesting" for recursion.
With the introduction of lambda expression in Java 8 you can now have anonymous methods.
Say I have a class Alpha and I want to filter Alphas on a specific condition. To do this you can use a Predicate<Alpha>. This is a functional interface which has a method test that accepts an Alpha and returns a boolean.
Assuming that the filter method has this signature:
Yes, if you are using Java 8 or above. Java 8 make it possible to define anonymous functions, which was impossible in previous versions.
Lets take example from java docs to get know how we can declare anonymous functions, classes
The following example, HelloWorldAnonymousClasses, uses anonymous
classes in the initialization statements of the local variables
frenchGreeting and spanishGreeting, but uses a local class for the
initialization of the variable englishGreeting:
public class HelloWorldAnonymousClasses {
interface HelloWorld {
public void greet();
public void greetSomeone(String someone);
}
public void sayHello() {
class EnglishGreeting implements HelloWorld {
String name = "world";
public void greet() {
greetSomeone("world");
}
public void greetSomeone(String someone) {
name = someone;
System.out.println("Hello " + name);
}
}
HelloWorld englishGreeting = new EnglishGreeting();
HelloWorld frenchGreeting = new HelloWorld() {
String name = "tout le monde";
public void greet() {
greetSomeone("tout le monde");
}
public void greetSomeone(String someone) {
name = someone;
System.out.println("Salut " + name);
}
};
HelloWorld spanishGreeting = new HelloWorld() {
String name = "mundo";
public void greet() {
greetSomeone("mundo");
}
public void greetSomeone(String someone) {
name = someone;
System.out.println("Hola, " + name);
}
};
englishGreeting.greet();
frenchGreeting.greetSomeone("Fred");
spanishGreeting.greet();
}
public static void main(String... args) {
HelloWorldAnonymousClasses myApp =
new HelloWorldAnonymousClasses();
myApp.sayHello();
}
}
Syntax of Anonymous Classes
Consider the instantiation of the frenchGreeting object:
HelloWorld frenchGreeting = new HelloWorld() {
String name = "tout le monde";
public void greet() {
greetSomeone("tout le monde");
}
public void greetSomeone(String someone) {
name = someone;
System.out.println("Salut " + name);
}
};
The anonymous class expression consists of the following:
The new operator
The name of an interface to implement or a class to extend. In this
example, the anonymous class is implementing the interface
HelloWorld.
Parentheses that contain the arguments to a constructor, just like a
normal class instance creation expression. Note: When you implement
an interface, there is no constructor, so you use an empty pair of
parentheses, as in this example.
A body, which is a class declaration body. More specifically, in the
body, method declarations are allowed but statements are not.
You can also use Consumer and BiConsumer type regarding to how many parameters you need. Consumer accepts one parameter, BiConsumer accepts two.
public void myMethod() {
// you can declare it here
Consumer<String> myAnonymousMethod = s -> {
System.out.println(s);
};
// you can call it here
muAnonymousMethod.apply("Hello World");
}