Proposed API for JEP 259: Stack-Walking API

[Mandy Chung]

> On Nov 4, 2015, at 5:00 AM, Remi Forax <forax at univ-mlv.fr> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Good point. Damn, i don’t like wildcards :-)
>> 
>> The following works fine:
>> 
>>  static <T> Function<Stream<T>, Long> counter() {
>>      return Stream::count;
>>  }
>> 
>> But there could also cases where one is stuck using a wildcard:
>> 
>>  Function<Stream<?>, Long> f = Stream::count;
> 
> 
> Wildcards are not that complex, but because they are use-side annotations, it's really easy to forget them, and IDEs do not help here :(
> 
> I really hope that the JEP about declaration site variance [1] will be implemented at the beginning of jdk 10, it will remove the need of wildcards for functional interfaces.
> 

Remi, Paul,

The current StackWalker::walk method:
    <T> T walk(Function<Stream<StackFrame>, T> function)

This would mean that the StackWalker API is intended to work with a function taking Stream<StackFrame> but not Stream<?>.

Changing to
    <T> T walk(Function<? super Stream<StackFrame>, ? extends T> function)

will allow use of some existing functions taking Stream<?>.  I don’t object changing it to use wildcard.

However, the StackWalker API is specific for reading StackFrame and I would expect it’s reasonable if it doesn’t work with a function taking Stream<?> as the useful functions such as Stream::count, Stream::collect(Collectors.toList(…)) can be used.

Just want to double confirm the advice which way to go.

Mandy