Main Features Introduced With Java8

This article explores the new features introduced in Java 8. Future articles will cover features from other Java versions.

Java 8 — (18/03/2014; LTS)

Lambda Expressions:

1. Enable to treat functionality as a method argument

• Lambda expressions can be used to pass functionality as an argument to a method. This is particularly useful in functional interfaces like Comparator, Runnable, etc.

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

public class LambdaExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<String> names = Arrays.asList("John", "Alice", "Bob");

        // Using lambda expression to sort the list
        names.sort((String a, String b) -> a.compareTo(b));

        System.out.println(names);
    }
}

2. Enable to treat a code as data.

• Lambda expressions allow you to treat code as data by passing a block of code that can be executed at a later time.

@FunctionalInterface
interface MathOperation {
    int operate(int a, int b);
}

public class LambdaExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Using lambda expressions to define operations
        MathOperation addition = (a, b) -> a + b;
        MathOperation subtraction = (a, b) -> a - b…