Hidden Features of Java

Answer 1

A couple of people have posted about instance initializers, here's a good use for it:

Map map = new HashMap() {{
    put("a key", "a value");
    put("another key", "another value");
}};

Is a quick way to initialize maps if you're just doing something quick and simple.

Or using it to create a quick swing frame prototype:

JFrame frame = new JFrame();

JPanel panel = new JPanel(); 

panel.add( new JLabel("Hey there"){{ 
    setBackground(Color.black);
    setForeground( Color.white);
}});

panel.add( new JButton("Ok"){{
    addActionListener( new ActionListener(){
        public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent ae ){
            System.out.println("Button pushed");
        }
     });
 }});


 frame.add( panel );

Of course it can be abused:

    JFrame frame = new JFrame(){{
         add( new JPanel(){{
               add( new JLabel("Hey there"){{ 
                    setBackground(Color.black);
                    setForeground( Color.white);
                }});

                add( new JButton("Ok"){{
                    addActionListener( new ActionListener(){
                        public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent ae ){
                            System.out.println("Button pushed");
                        }
                     });
                 }});
        }});
    }};

Answer 2

This is not exactly "hidden features" and not very useful, but can be extremely interesting in some cases:
Class sun.misc.Unsafe - will allow you to implement direct memory management in Java (you can even write self-modifying Java code with this if you try a lot):

public class UnsafeUtil {

    public static Unsafe unsafe;
    private static long fieldOffset;
    private static UnsafeUtil instance = new UnsafeUtil();

    private Object obj;

    static {
        try {
            Field f = Unsafe.class.getDeclaredField("theUnsafe");
            f.setAccessible(true);

            unsafe = (Unsafe)f.get(null);
            fieldOffset = unsafe.objectFieldOffset(UnsafeUtil.class.getDeclaredField("obj"));
        } catch (Exception e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(e);
        }
    };
}

Answer 3

How about covariant return types which have been in place since JDK 1.5? It is pretty poorly publicised, as it is an unsexy addition, but as I understand it, is absolutely necessary for generics to work.

Essentially, the compiler now allows a subclass to narrow the return type of an overridden method to be a subclass of the original method's return type. So this is allowed:

class Souper {
    Collection<String> values() {
        ...
    }
}

class ThreadSafeSortedSub extends Souper {
    @Override
    ConcurrentSkipListSet<String> values() {
        ...
    }
}

You can call the subclass's values method and obtain a sorted thread safe Set of Strings without having to down cast to the ConcurrentSkipListSet.

Answer 4

Joint union in type parameter variance:

public class Baz<T extends Foo & Bar> {}

For example, if you wanted to take a parameter that's both Comparable and a Collection:

public static <A, B extends Collection<A> & Comparable<B>>
boolean foo(B b1, B b2, A a) {
   return (b1.compareTo(b2) == 0) || b1.contains(a) || b2.contains(a);
}

This contrived method returns true if the two given collections are equal or if either one of them contains the given element, otherwise false. The point to notice is that you can invoke methods of both Comparable and Collection on the arguments b1 and b2.

Answer 5

For most people I interview for Java developer positions labeled blocks are very surprising. Here is an example:

// code goes here

getmeout:{
    for (int i = 0; i < N; ++i) {
        for (int j = i; j < N; ++j) {
            for (int k = j; k < N; ++k) {
                //do something here
                break getmeout;
            }
        }
    }
}

Who said goto in java is just a keyword? :)

Answer 6

I think another "overlooked" feature of java is the JVM itself. It is probably the best VM available. And it supports lots of interesting and useful languages (Jython, JRuby, Scala, Groovy). All those languages can easily and seamlessly cooperate.

If you design a new language (like in the scala-case) you immediately have all the existing libraries available and your language is therefore "useful" from the very beginning.

All those languages make use of the HotSpot optimizations. The VM is very well monitor and debuggable.