Question

I am using an interface called Predicate which is used for sifting through Collections. For example, I can define

public class BlackCatPredicate implements Predicate<Cat> {   public boolean evaluate( Cat c ) {        return c.isBlack();   } } 

and then use some utility findAll( Collection<T> coll, Predicate<T> pred) method to apply the predicate to a collection of Cats, and get just the black ones, etc.

My question is this: I’m finding black cats all over my code, so there is no need to keep instantiating the BlackCatPredicate over and over again. It should just have one instance. (A singleton?) But then, over the course of writing many predicates, I don’t want to have to implement each one as a singleton. So — what is the proper design here?

Answer 1

I’d use an anonymous class constant and put it with the class it operates on:

public class Cat{     public static final Predicate<Cat> BLACK_PREDICATE = new Predicate<Cat>(){             public boolean evaluate( Cat c ) {                 return c.isBlack();             }         };      // Rest of the Cat class goes here } 

If the predicate has parameters, you can use a static factory method.

Edit: As was pointed out in the comments, depending on the usage patterns, it may result in clearer code to collect the predicate constants (and/or factory methods) in a separate class, either only those for Cat, or all of them. It depends mainly on their number, how much additional organization is helpful.