Can I add new methods to the String class in Java?

Question

I\'d like to add a method AddDefaultNamespace() to the String class in Java so that I can type \"myString\".AddDefaultNamespace() instead of

Answer 1

The class declaration says it all pretty much,as you cannot inherit it becouse it's final. You can ofcourse implement your own string-class, but that is probaby just a hassle.

public final class String

C# (.net 3.5) have the functionality to use extender metods but sadly java does not. There is some java extension called nice http://nice.sourceforge.net/ though that seems to add the same functionality to java.

Here is how you would write your example in the Nice language (an extension of Java):

private String someMethod(String s)
{
   return s.substring(0,1);

}

void main(String[] args)
{
   String s1 = "hello";
   String s2 = s1.someMethod();
   System.out.println(s2);

}

You can find more about Nice at http://nice.sf.net