Java 8

What are the new features introduced in JAVA 8?

There are dozens of features added to Java 8, the most significant ones are mentioned below −

• Lambda expression − Adds functional processing capability to Java.
• Method references − Referencing functions by their names instead of invoking them directly. Using functions as parameter.
• Default method − Interface to have default method implementation.
• New tools − New compiler tools and utilities are added like 'jdeps' to figure out dependencies.
• Stream API − New stream API to facilitate pipeline processing.
• Date Time API − Improved date time API.
• Optional − Emphasis on best practices to handle null values properly.
• Nashorn, JavaScript Engine − A Java-based engine to execute JavaScript code.

Along with these new featuers, lots of feature enhancements are done under-the-hood, at both compiler and JVM level.

What are default methods?

With java 8, an interface can have default implementation of a function in interfaces.

What are static default methods?

An interface can also have static helper methods from Java 8 onwards.

public interface vehicle {
   default void print() {
      System.out.println("I am a vehicle!");
   }
 
   static void blowHorn() {
      System.out.println("Blowing horn!!!");
   }
}