How to pass and invoke method references in Java

Question

Let's say I have a class called Server, and I would like to allow others to write Plugins for it. Say Plugin is an Interface that extends Runnable and adds a single method: void init(...). It is the job of a plugin to collect data and send it to the server. When the time comes to send data to the server, however, how does it do this? Coming from C and C++ I am looking for a thinking along the lines of a function pointer. It seems to be possible in Java though I have not found examples outside the Java Standard Class Library.

How do I pass a method reference to the init method such that it can be stored by the Plugin, and then how do I invoke the method whenever the Plugin wants to send data? For now say that the desired Server method is: void sendData(Integer data).

For example:

// Inside Server
Plugin p = new PluginImplementation();
p.init(this::sendData);    

// Plugin init
public void init(?? sendMethod) {
    storedSendMethod = sendMethod;
    // ...
}

// Plugin run
public void run() {
    // ...
    storedSendMethod(x) // Sends data to server
    // ...
}

Answer 1

Using java.util.function.Function we can pass a function as an argument to a method, and then use apply() to apply it to the relevant arguments. Here's an example:

import java.util.function.Function;

public class FunctionDemo {

    // we will pass a reference to this method
    public static Integer square(Integer x) {
        return x * x;
    }

    // this method accepts the function as an argument and applies it to the input: 5
    public static Integer doSomething(Function<Integer, Integer> func) {
        return func.apply(5);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // and here's how to use it
        System.out.println(doSomething(FunctionDemo::square)); // prints 25
    }   
}

Additional version with multiple parameters (passed as an array):

public static Integer sum(Integer[] x) {
    Integer result = 0;
    for(int i = 0; i < x.length; i++)
        result += x[i];
    return result;
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Integer[] arr = {1,2,3,4,5};
    System.out.println(doSomething(Play::sum, arr));
}

public static Integer doSomething(Function<Integer[], Integer> func,
                                  Integer[] arr) {        
    return func.apply(arr);
}

Answer 2

If the method is void sendData(Integer data) that corresponds to a consumer that takes an Integer and returns a void which is covered by the built in Consumer<Integer> interface which has an accept(Integer) method that will invoke your function when called.

So your code will look like this:

public void init(Consumer<Integer> sendMethod) {
    storedSendMethod = sendMethod;
    // ...
}

// Plugin run
 void run() {
    // ...
    storedSendMethod.accept(x) // Sends data to server
   // ...
}

As a sidenote, having an init method is probably a bad Java design. you are better moving the initialization to the constructor if possbile

Plugin p = new PluginImplementation( this::sendData);