support for 'var' in lambda parameters

[Maurizio Cimadamore]

Hi,
the support for var in lambdas is only in the amber repository (lvti 
branch). For JDK 10 we have targeted the more mature part of the lvti 
branch.

But stay tuned, as we might have more news soon ;-)

And thanks for trying out the feature - it is true that, if you want 
annotations, modifiers (such as final), you are currently restricted to 
use explicit parameter declaration, which in certain cases might be 
inconvenient if the types involved are big.

Cheers
Maurizio


On 17/12/17 06:48, Zheka Kozlov wrote:
> I just downloaded the latest JDK (10-ea+36) and I cannot use `var` in 
> lambdas. Was this rejected? I now find this feature really useful 
> because I often want to write `(final var p) -> ...` instead of 
> `(final VeryLongTypeName p) -> ...`
>
> 2017-09-27 19:47 GMT+07:00 Maurizio Cimadamore 
> <maurizio.cimadamore at oracle.com <mailto:maurizio.cimadamore at oracle.com>>:
>
>
>
>     On 27/09/17 13:20, Zheka Kozlov wrote:
>>     Why should we allow `var` in lambda parameters? Who will ever
>>     need writing `(var x) -> x` instead of `x -> x`?
>     Hi,
>     first of all, to clarify things, this is an experimental feature -
>     which is why it was left out from the JEP 286 integration into
>     jdk10/master.
>
>     Secondly, JEP 286 is not just about 'var' in local variable
>     declaration (although I agree that's the most frequent use case).
>     You can also use 'var' in other places too, such as for loops and
>     try-with-resources. From an uniformity perspective, one could
>     argue that lambda parameters are another place where the 'var'
>     treatment could be applied.
>
>     As you point out, lambdas do provide a more succint version to
>     declare implicit parameters - but in a language that is evolving
>     to use 'var' in more places (pattern matching will likely use
>     'var' for pattern bindings), I think that, from a pedagogical
>     question at least, it makes sense to allow 'var' in all places
>     where you want to declare a variable but you don't care about
>     giving it an explicit type.
>
>     Maurizio
>
>>
>>     2017-09-27 19:07 GMT+07:00 Maurizio Cimadamore
>>     <maurizio.cimadamore at oracle.com
>>     <mailto:maurizio.cimadamore at oracle.com>>:
>>
>>         Hi,
>>         I've recently pushed a changeset [1] to enable use of 'var'
>>         in lambda parameters. Below is some rationale on the
>>         implemented support.
>>
>>         In the current (e.g. JDK 9) grammar, we have two versions of
>>         lambdas: *implicitly*- and *explicitly*-typed. Furthermore,
>>         an implicitly typed lambda can come in two form (there's no
>>         terminology for it, so I'll make up one): *compact* and
>>         *parenthesized*.
>>
>>         Let's see some examples:
>>
>>         x->x //implicit, compact
>>         (x)->x //implicit, parenthesized
>>         (String x)->x //explicit
>>
>>         So, the first question is - when is it ok to use `var`? There
>>         are two choices here:
>>
>>         1. allow `var` on all implicit lambdas
>>         2. allow `var` only on implicit parenthesized lambdas
>>
>>
>>         We concluded that (2) is the option that makes more sense -
>>         this allows for a smooth verbosity curve (see below from most
>>         compact to least compact):
>>
>>         x->x
>>         (x)->x //added parens
>>         (var x)->x //added 'var'
>>         (String x)->x //ok, fully typed
>>
>>         Second question: we basically have now two kind of implicitly
>>         typed parameters - those that omit type info in full (e.g.
>>         the formal decl is just an identifier) and those using `var`.
>>         Can we mix and match between these e.g.
>>
>>         (var x, y)->x+y
>>
>>         We have concluded that there's no need to mix and match. In
>>         fact, it is more likely that one form of implicit parameter
>>         declaration will supplant the other in the long run.
>>
>>         Third question: what about parameter modifiers such as
>>         `final` and/or annotations? Historically, such modifiers were
>>         not allowed in implicit lambda parameters (as those were just
>>         identifiers, and it poses several parser challenges to e.g.
>>         allow annotations there); on the other hand, local variables
>>         using `var` support both modifiers and annotations. We
>>         concluded that, for consistency, we have to do the same when
>>         `var` occurs in a lambda parameter.
>>
>>         Last question: can I mix implicit an explicit parameters?
>>
>>         (var x, String y)-> x + y
>>
>>         While that would be nice, it must be noted that this is a
>>         much deeper change, with ramifications in overload selection,
>>         since implicit and explicit lambdas are currently two
>>         disjoint sets, with very different behavior w.r.t. overload
>>         resolution (see definitions of 'pertinent to applicability'
>>         in JLS 15.12.2.2). For that reason, we won't go down there
>>         now (but it's something worth considering in the future).
>>
>>         Maurizio
>>
>>         [1] -
>>         http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/amber-dev/2017-September/002138.html
>>         <http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/amber-dev/2017-September/002138.html>
>>
>>
>>
>
>