What's the nearest substitute for a function pointer in Java?

Question

I have a method that\'s about ten lines of code. I want to create more methods that do exactly the same thing, except for a small calculation that\'s going to change one li

Answer 1

Prior to Java 8, nearest substitute for function-pointer-like functionality was an anonymous class. For example:

Collections.sort(list, new Comparator(){
    public int compare(CustomClass a, CustomClass b)
    {
        // Logic to compare objects of class CustomClass which returns int as per contract.
    }
});

But now in Java 8 we have a very neat alternative known as lambda expression, which can be used as:

list.sort((a, b) ->  { a.isBiggerThan(b) } );

where isBiggerThan is a method in CustomClass. We can also use method references here:

list.sort(MyClass::isBiggerThan);