New features in java 7

Question

What new features in java 7 is going to be implemented? And what are they doing now?

Answer 1

Java SE 7 Features and Enhancements from JDK 7 Release Notes

This is the Java 7 new features summary from the OpenJDK 7 features page:

vm  JSR 292: Support for dynamically-typed languages (InvokeDynamic)
        Strict class-file checking
lang    JSR 334: Small language enhancements (Project Coin)
core    Upgrade class-loader architecture
        Method to close a URLClassLoader
        Concurrency and collections updates (jsr166y)
i18n    Unicode 6.0
        Locale enhancement
        Separate user locale and user-interface locale
ionet   JSR 203: More new I/O APIs for the Java platform (NIO.2)
        NIO.2 filesystem provider for zip/jar archives
        SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol)
        SDP (Sockets Direct Protocol)
        Use the Windows Vista IPv6 stack
        TLS 1.2
sec     Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC)
jdbc    JDBC 4.1
client  XRender pipeline for Java 2D
        Create new platform APIs for 6u10 graphics features
        Nimbus look-and-feel for Swing
        Swing JLayer component
        Gervill sound synthesizer [NEW]
web     Update the XML stack
mgmt    Enhanced MBeans [UPDATED]

Code examples for new features in Java 1.7

Try-with-resources statement

this:

BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(path));
try {
   return br.readLine();
} finally {
   br.close();
}

becomes:

try (BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new FileReader(path)) {
   return br.readLine();
}

You can declare more than one resource to close:

try (
   InputStream in = new FileInputStream(src);
   OutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(dest))
{
 // code
}

Underscores in numeric literals

int one_million = 1_000_000;

Strings in switch

String s = ...
switch(s) {
 case "quux":
    processQuux(s);
    // fall-through

  case "foo":
  case "bar":
    processFooOrBar(s);
    break;

  case "baz":
     processBaz(s);
    // fall-through

  default:
    processDefault(s);
    break;
}

Binary literals

int binary = 0b1001_1001;

Improved Type Inference for Generic Instance Creation

Map<String, List<String>> anagrams = new HashMap<String, List<String>>();

becomes:

Map<String, List<String>> anagrams = new HashMap<>();

Multiple exception catching

this:

} catch (FirstException ex) {
     logger.error(ex);
     throw ex;
} catch (SecondException ex) {
     logger.error(ex);
     throw ex;
}

becomes:

} catch (FirstException | SecondException ex) {
     logger.error(ex);
    throw ex;
}

SafeVarargs

this:

@SuppressWarnings({"unchecked", "varargs"})
public static void printAll(List<String>... lists){
    for(List<String> list : lists){
        System.out.println(list);
    }
}

becomes:

@SafeVarargs
public static void printAll(List<String>... lists){
    for(List<String> list : lists){
        System.out.println(list);
    }
}

Answer 2

Language changes:

-Project Coin (small changes)
-switch on Strings
-try-with-resources
-diamond operator

Library changes:

-new abstracted file-system API (NIO.2) (with support for virtual filesystems)
-improved concurrency libraries
-elliptic curve encryption
-more incremental upgrades

Platform changes:

-support for dynamic languages

Below is the link explaining the newly added features of JAVA 7 , the explanation is crystal clear with the possible small examples for each features :

http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/09/java7-features.html