55 New Features in Java SE 8

Xuelie Fan
Java Security Expert, Java Platform Group,
Oracle
Java SE 8 (JSR 337)
Component JSRs
 New functionality
– JSR 308: Annotations on types
– JSR 310: Date and Time API
– JSR 335: Lambda expressions

 Updated functionality
– JSR 114: JDBC Rowsets
– JSR 160: JMX Remote API
– JSR 199: Java Compiler API
– JSR 173: Streaming API for XML
– JSR 206: Java API for XML Processing
– JSR 221: JDBC 4.0
– JSR 269: Pluggable Annotation-Processing API
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JDK Enhancement Proposals (JEPs)
 Regularly updated list of proposals
– Serve as the long-term roadmap for JDK release projects
– Roadmap extends for at least three years
 Uniform format and a central archive for enhancement proposals
– Interested parties can find, read, comment, and contribute
 Process is open to every OpenJDK Committer
 Enhancement is a non-trivial change to the JDK code base
– Two or more weeks of engineering effort
– significant change to JDK or development processes and infrastructure
– High demand from developers or customers
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 Language

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Lambda Expressions
Functional Programming
 Lambda expressions provide anonymous function types to Java
– Replace use of anonymous inner classes
– Provide more functional style of programming in Java
doSomething(new DoStuff() {
public boolean isGood(int value) {
return value == 42;
}
});

Simplified to

doSomething(answer -> answer == 42);

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Extension Methods
Bringing Multiple Inheritance (of Functionality) to Java
 Provide a mechanism to add new methods to existing interfaces
– Without breaking backwards compatability
– Gives Java multiple inheritance of behaviour, as well as types (but not state!)

public interface Set<T> extends Collection<T> {

public int size();

... // The rest of the existing Set methods

public T reduce(Reducer<T> r)
default Collections.<T>setReducer;
}

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Static Methods In Interfaces

 Previously it was not possible to include static methods in an interface

 Static methods, by definition, are not abstract
– @FunctionalInterface can have zero or more static methods

static <T> Predicate<T> isEqual(Object target) {

return (null == target)
? Objects::isNull
: object -> target.equals(object);
}

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Functional Interface

 Single Abstract Method (SAM) type

 A functional interface is an interface that has one abstract method
– Represents a single function contract
– Doesn’t mean it only has one method
 @FunctionalInterface annotation
– Helps ensure the functional interface contract is honoured
– Compiler error if not a SAM

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Method References

 Method references let us reuse a method as a lambda expression

FileFilter x = File f -> f.canRead();

FileFilter x = File::canRead;

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Constructor References

 Same concept as a method reference

– For the constructor

Factory<List<String>> f = () -> return new ArrayList<String>();

Factory<List<String>> f = ArrayList<String>::new;

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Annotations On Java Types

 Annotations can currently only be used on type declarations

– Classes, methods, variable definitions
 Extension for places where types are used
– e.g. parameters
 Permits error detection by pluggable type checkers
– e.g. null pointer errors, race conditions, etc

public void process(@notnull List data) {…}

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Generalised Target-Type Inference
Improved usability of generics
class List<E> {
static <Z> List<Z> nil() { ... };
static <Z> List<Z> cons(Z head, List<Z> tail) { ... };
E head() { ... }
}
List<String> ls = List.nil(); // Inferred correctly

error: expected List<Integer>, found List<Object>

List.cons(42, List.nil());

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Access To Parameter Names At Runtime

 Mechanism to retrieve parameter names of methods and constructors

– At runtime via core reflection
 Improved code readability
– Eliminate redundant annotations
 Improve IDE capabilities
– Auto-generate template code
 Method and Constructor now inherit from new Executable class
– getParameters() returns array of Parameter objects
– Name, type, annotations for each parameter

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Small Things
 Repeating annotations
Multiple annotations with the same type applied to a single program element
 No more apt tool and associated API
–Complete the transition to the JSR 269 implementation
 DocTree API
–Provide access to the syntactic elements of a javadoc comment
 DocLint tool
–Use DocTree API to identify basic errors in javadoc comments
 Javadoc support in javax.tools
–Invoke javadoc tools from API as well as command line/exec

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 Core Libraries

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Enhance Core Libraries With Lambdas

 No small task!
– Java SE 7 has 4024 standard classes
 Modernise general library APIs
 Improve performance
– Gains from use of invokedynamic to implement Lambdas
 Demonstrate best practices for extension methods

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Concurrency Updates

 Scalable update variables

– DoubleAccumulator, DoubleAdder, etc
– Multiple variables avoid update contention
– Good for frequent updates, infrequent reads
 ConcurrentHashMap updates
– Improved scanning support, key computation
 ForkJoinPool improvements
– Completion based design for IO bound applications
– Thread that is blocked hands work to thread that is running

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Bulk Data Operations For Collections
Filter, Map, Reduce for Java
 java.util.stream package
– Stream, Collector interfaces

 Serial and parallel implementations

– Generally expressed with Lambda statements
 Parallel implementation builds on Fork-Join framework
 Lazy evaluation
– Things like getFirst() terminate stream

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Add Stream Sources

 From collections and arrays

– Collection.stream()
– Collection.parallelStream()
– Arrays.stream(T array) or Stream.of()

 Static factories
– IntStream.range()
– Files.walk()

 Roll your own

– java.util.Spliterator()

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java.util.function Package

 Predicate<T>
– Determine if the input of type T matches some criteria
 Consumer<T>
– Accept a single input argumentof type T, and return no result
 Function<T, R>
– Apply a function to the input type T, generating a result of type R
 Supplier<T>
– A supplier of results
 Plus several more type specific versions
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Optional<T>
Reducing NullPointerException Occurences
String direction = gpsData.getPosition().getLatitude().getDirection();

String direction = “UNKNOWN”;

if (gpsData != null) {
Position p = gpsData.getPosition();

if (p != null) {
Latitude latitude = p.getLatitude();

if (latitude != null)
direction = latitude.getDirection();
}
}
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 Optional<T>
Reducing NullPointerException Occurences

 Indicates that reference may, or may not have a value

– Makes developer responsible for checking
– A bit like a stream that can only have zero or one elements

Optional<GPSData> maybeGPS = Optional.of(gpsData);

maybeGPS = Optional.ofNullable(gpsData);

maybeGPS.ifPresent(GPSData::printPosition);

GPSData gps = maybeGPS.orElse(new GPSData());

maybeGPS.filter(g -> g.lastRead() < 2).ifPresent(GPSData.display());

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Parallel Array Sorting

 Additional utility methods in java.util.Arrays

– parallelSort (multiple signatures for different primitives)

 Anticipated minimum improvement of 30% over sequential sort

– For dual core system with appropriate sized data set
 Built on top of the fork-join framework
– Uses Doug Lea’s ParallelArray implementation
– Requires working space the same size as the array being sorted

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Date And Time APIs

 A new date, time, and calendar API for the Java SE platform
 Supports standard time concepts
– Partial, duration, period, intervals
– date, time, instant, and time-zone
 Provides a limited set of calendar systems and be extensible to others
 Uses relevant standards, including ISO-8601, CLDR, and BCP47
 Based on an explicit time-scale with a connection to UTC

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JDBC 4.2
Minor enhancements for usability and portability
 Add setter/update methods
– ResultSet, PreparedStatement, and CallableStatement
– Support new data types such as those being defined in JSR 310
 REF_CURSOR support for CallableStatement
 DatabaseMetaData.getIndexInfo extended
– new columns for CARDINALITY and PAGES which return a long value
 New DatabaseMetaData method
– getMaxLogicalLobSize
– Return the logical maximum size for a LOB

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Base64 Encoding and Decoding

 Currently developers are forced to use non-public APIs

– sun.misc.BASE64Encoder
– sun.misc.BASE64Decoder

 Java SE 8 now has a standard way

– java.util.Base64.Encoder
– java.util.Base64.Decoder
– encode, encodeToString, decode, wrap methods

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Small Things

 Charset implementation improvements

– Reduced size of charsets, improved performance of encoding/decoding
 Reduced core-library memory usage
– Reduced object size, disable reflection compiler, internal table sizes, etc
 Optimize java.text.DecimalFormat.format
– Improve performance, multiply by 100.0 or 1000.0 (2 or 3 DP only)
 Statically Linked JNI Libraries
– Needed for embedded applications
– Currently only dynamically linked supported

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 Internationalisation
(I18N)

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Locale Data Packing

 Tool to generate locale data files

– From LDML format
 Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR) support
 Locale elements supported from underlying platform

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BCP 47 Locale Mapping

 Language tags to indicate the language used for an information object

– RFC-5646 (Language range)
– RFC-5456 (Language priority, preference)
 Language range Collection<String>
 Language priority List <String>
 Three operations added to Locale class
– filterBasic
– filterExtended
– lookup

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Unicode 6.2

 Java SE 7 support Unicode 6.0

 Changes in Unicode 6.1 (February, 2012)
– Add 11 new blocks to java.lang.Character.UnicodeBlock
– Add 7 new scripts to java.lang.Character.UnicodeScript
– Support over 700 new characters in java.lang.Character, String,
and other classes
 Changes in Unicode 6.2 (September, 2012)
– Support a new Turkish currency sign (U+20BA)

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 Security

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Configurable Secure Random Number Generator

 Better implementation of SecureRandom

 Currently applications can hang on Linux
– JVM uses /dev/random
– This will block if the system entropy pool is not large enough

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Enhanced Certificate Revocation-Checking API

 Current java.security.cert API is all-or-nothing

– Failure to contact server is a fatal error
 New interfaces
– CertPathChecker
– CertPathParameters

 New command line debug option

– -Djava.security.debug=certpath

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HTTP URL Permissions

 New type of network permission

– Grant access in terms of URLs, rather than IP addresses
 Current way to specify network permissions
– java.net.SocketPermission
– Not restricted to just HTTP
– Operates in terms of IP addresses only
 New, higher level capabilities
– Support HTTP operations (POST, GET, etc)
– Build on limited doPrivileged feature

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Small Items
 Limited doPrivileged
– Execute Lambda expression with privileges enabled
 NSA Suite B cryptographic algorithms
– Conform to standards to meet U.S. government, banking requirements
 AEAD CipherSuite support
– Conform to standards to meet U.S. government, banking requirements
 SHA-224 message digests
– Required due to known flaw in SHA-1
 Leverage CPU instructions for AES cryptography
– Improve encryption/decryption performance
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Small Changes
 Microsoft Services For UNIX (MS-SFU) Kerberos 5 extensions
– Enhanced Microsoft interoperability
 TLS Server Name Indication (SNI) extension
– More flexible secure virtual hosting, virtual-machine infrastructure
 PKCS#11 crypto provider for 64-bit Windows
– Allow use of widely available native libraries
 Stronger algorithms for password-based encryption
– Researchers and hackers move on
 Overhaul JKS-JCEKS-PKCS12 keystores
– Simplify interacting with Java SE keystores for cryptographic applications
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 The Platform

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Launch JavaFX Applications

 Support the direct launching of JavaFX applications

 Enhancement to the java command line launcher

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 Compact Profiles
Approximate static footprint goals

Compact1 Profile
11Mb

Compact2 Profile 16Mb

Compact3 Profile 30Mb

Full JRE 54Mb

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Modularisation Preparation
Getting Ready For Jigsaw
 Fix some assumptions about classloaders
 Use ServiceLoader rather than proprietary SPI code
 JDK tool to analyse application code dependencies
 Deprecate APIs that will impede modularisation
– e.g. java.util.logging.LogManager.addPropertyChangeListener
 Review and possibly change $JAVA_HOME normative references
– Relative v. absolute pathnames

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 Virtual Machine

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Nashorn JavaScript Engine

 Lightweight, high-performance JavaScript engine

– Integrated into JRE
 Use existing javax.script API
 ECMAScript-262 Edition 5.1 language specification compliance
 New command-line tool, jjs to run JavaScript
 Internationalised error messages and documentation

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Retire Rarely-Used GC Combinations

 Rarely used
– DefNew + CMS
– ParNew + SerialOld
– Incremental CMS
 Large testing effort for little return
 Will generate deprecated option messages
– Won’t disappear just yet

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Remove The Permanent Generation
Permanently
 No more need to tune the size of it
 Current objects moved to Java heap or native memory
– Interned strings
– Class metadata
– Class static variables
 Part of the HotSpot, JRockit convergence

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Small Things
 Reduce class metadata footprint
– Use techniques from CVM of Java ME CDC
 Reduce cache contention on specified fields
– Pad variables to avoid sharing cache lines
 Small VM
– libjvm.so <3MB by compiling for size over speed

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Conclusions

 Java SE 8 adds plenty of new features (and removes a few)

– Language
– Libraries
– JVM
 Java continues to evolve!
– jdk8.java.net
– www.jcp.org
– openjdk.java.net/jeps

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 Graphic Section Divider

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