Does Java support Currying?

Question

I was wondering if there is any way to pull that in Java. I think it is not possible without native support for closures.

Answer 1

Yes, I agree with @Jérôme, curring in Java 8 is not supported in a standard way like in Scala or other functional programming languages.

public final class Currying {
  private static final Function<String, Consumer<String>> MAILER = (String ipAddress) -> (String message) -> {
    System.out.println(message + ":" + ipAddress );
  };
  //Currying
  private static final Consumer<String> LOCAL_MAILER =  MAILER.apply("127.0.0.1");

  public static void main(String[] args) {
      MAILER.apply("127.1.1.2").accept("Hello !!!!");
      LOCAL_MAILER.accept("Hello");
  }
}

Answer 2

Well, Scala, Clojure or Haskell (or any other functional programming language...) are definitely THE languages to use for currying and other functional tricks.

Having that said is certainly possible to curry with Java without the super amounts of boilerplate one might expect (well, having to be explicit about the types hurts a lot though - just take a look at the curried example ;-)).

The tests bellow showcase both, currying a Function3 into Function1 => Function1 => Function1:

@Test
public void shouldCurryFunction() throws Exception {
  // given
  Function3<Integer, Integer, Integer, Integer> func = (a, b, c) -> a + b + c;

  // when
  Function<Integer, Function<Integer, Function<Integer, Integer>>> cur = curried(func);

  // then
  Function<Integer, Function<Integer, Integer>> step1 = cur.apply(1);
  Function<Integer, Integer> step2 = step1.apply(2);
  Integer result = step2.apply(3);

  assertThat(result).isEqualTo(6);
}

as well as partial application, although it's not really typesafe in this example:

@Test
public void shouldCurryOneArgument() throws Exception {
  // given
  Function3<Integer, Integer, Integer, Integer> adding = (a, b, c) -> a + b + c;

  // when
  Function2<Integer, Integer, Integer> curried = applyPartial(adding, _, _, put(1));

  // then
  Integer got = curried.apply(0, 0);
  assertThat(got).isEqualTo(1);
}

This is taken from a Proof Of Concept I've just implemented for fun before JavaOne tomorrow in an hour "because I was bored" ;-) The code is available here: https://github.com/ktoso/jcurry

The general idea could be expanded to FunctionN => FunctionM, relatively easily, though "real typesafety" remains a problem for the partia application example and the currying example would need a hell lot of boilerplaty code in jcurry, but it's doable.

All in all, it's doable, yet in Scala it's out of the box ;-)

Answer 3

One more take on the Java 8 possibilities:

BiFunction<Integer, Integer, Integer> add = (x, y) -> x + y;

Function<Integer, Integer> increment = y -> add.apply(1, y);
assert increment.apply(5) == 6;

You can also define utility methods like this one:

static <A1, A2, R> Function<A2, R> curry(BiFunction<A1, A2, R> f, A1 a1) {
    return a2 -> f.apply(a1, a2);
}

Which gives you an arguably more readable syntax:

Function<Integer, Integer> increment = curry(add, 1);
assert increment.apply(5) == 6;

Answer 4

Java 8 (released March 18th 2014) does support currying. The example Java code posted in the answer by missingfaktor can be rewritten as:

import java.util.function.*;
import static java.lang.System.out;

// Tested with JDK 1.8.0-ea-b75
public class CurryingAndPartialFunctionApplication
{
   public static void main(String[] args)
   {
      IntBinaryOperator simpleAdd = (a, b) -> a + b;
      IntFunction<IntUnaryOperator> curriedAdd = a -> b -> a + b;

      // Demonstrating simple add:
      out.println(simpleAdd.applyAsInt(4, 5));

      // Demonstrating curried add:
      out.println(curriedAdd.apply(4).applyAsInt(5));

      // Curried version lets you perform partial application:
      IntUnaryOperator adder5 = curriedAdd.apply(5);
      out.println(adder5.applyAsInt(4));
      out.println(adder5.applyAsInt(6));
   }
}

... which is quite nice. Personally, with Java 8 available I see little reason to use an alternative JVM language such as Scala or Clojure. They provide other language features, of course, but that's not enough to justify the transition cost and the weaker IDE/tooling/libraries support, IMO.

Answer 5

EDIT: As of 2014 and Java 8, functional programming in Java is now not only possible, but also not ugly (I dare to say beautiful). See for example Rogerio's answer.

Old answer:

Java isn't best choice, if you are going to use functional programming techniques. As missingfaktor wrote, you will have to write quite big amount of code to achieve what you want.

On the other hand, you are not restricted to Java on JVM - you can use Scala or Clojure which are functional languages (Scala is, in fact, both functional and OO).

Answer 6

An another choice is here for Java 6+

abstract class CurFun<Out> {

    private Out result;
    private boolean ready = false;

    public boolean isReady() {
        return ready;
    }

    public Out getResult() {
        return result;
    }

    protected void setResult(Out result) {
        if (isReady()) {
            return;
        }

        ready = true;
        this.result = result;
    }

    protected CurFun<Out> getReadyCurFun() {
        final Out finalResult = getResult();
        return new CurFun<Out>() {
            @Override
            public boolean isReady() {
                return true;
            }
            @Override
            protected CurFun<Out> apply(Object value) {
                return getReadyCurFun();
            }
            @Override
            public Out getResult() {
                return finalResult;
            }
        };
    }

    protected abstract CurFun<Out> apply(final Object value);
}

then you could achieve currying by this way

CurFun<String> curFun = new CurFun<String>() {
    @Override
    protected CurFun<String> apply(final Object value1) {
        return new CurFun<String>() {
            @Override
            protected CurFun<String> apply(final Object value2) {
                return new CurFun<String>() {
                    @Override
                    protected CurFun<String> apply(Object value3) {
                        setResult(String.format("%s%s%s", value1, value2, value3));
//                        return null;
                        return getReadyCurFun();
                    }
                };
            }
        };
    }
};

CurFun<String> recur = curFun.apply("1");
CurFun<String> next = recur;
int i = 2;
while(next != null && (! next.isReady())) {
    recur = next;
    next = recur.apply(""+i);
    i++;
}

// The result would be "123"
String result = recur.getResult();