Question

I have a class from another library that is closed-source, but I want to be able to use an interface for it. The reason being that I don’t want to do instanceof checks or null-checks everywhere, but I also don’t want to extend the existing class.

For example, let’s say I have this code:

public class Example {

    // QuietFoo is from another library that I can't change
    private static QuietFoo quietFoo;
    // LoudFoo is my own code and is meant to replace QuietFoo
    private static LoudFoo loudFoo;

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        handle(foo);
    }

    private static void handle(Object foo) {
        if (foo instanceof QuietFoo)
            ((QuietFoo) foo).bar();
        else if (foo instanceof LoudFoo)
            ((LoudFoo) foo).bar();
    }
}

I can’t change QuietFoo:

public class QuietFoo {

    public void bar() {
        System.out.println("bar");
    }
}

But I can change LoudFoo:

public class LoudFoo {

    public void bar() {
        System.out.println("BAR!!");
    }
}

The problem is, there may be many other implementations of bar in many classes, and there may be more methods than just bar, so not only would my handle method get slow and ugly with lots of instanceof statements, but I would have to write one of these handle methods for each method on QuietFoo and LoudFoo. Extending isn’t a viable solution because it violates the whole is-a contract since LoudFoo is not a QuietFoo.

Basically, given Foo:

public interface Foo {
    void bar();
}

How can I make QuietFoo implement Foo without changing its source so I don’t have to do casting and instanceof calls everywhere in my code?

Answer 1

There are two approaches:

1. Using an adapter pattern
2. Using Proxy

The adapter approach will be simpler but less flexible, and the Proxy approach will be more complex but more flexible. Even though the Proxy approach is more complex, that complexity is all restricted to a couple of classes.

---

Adapter

The adapter pattern is simple. For your example, it would just be one class, like so:

public class QuietFooAdapter implements Foo {

    private QuietFoo quietFoo;

    public QuietFooAdapter(QuietFoo quietFoo) {
        this.quietFoo = quietFoo;
    }

    public void bar() {
        quietFoo.bar();
    }
}

Then to use it:

Foo foo = new QuietFooAdapter(new QuietFoo());
foo.bar();

This is good, but if you have more than one class to make an adapter for, this can be tedious since you’ll need a new adapter for each class you have to wrap.

---

Java’s Proxy Class

Proxy is a native Java class that’s part of the reflection libraries that will allow you to create a more generic, reflective solution. It involves 3 parts:

1. The interface (in this case, Foo)
2. The InvocationHandler
3. Creation of the proxy (Proxy.newProxyInstance)

We already have the interface, so we’re fine there.

The InvocationHandler is where we do our “auto-adapting” via reflection:

public class AdapterInvocationHandler implements InvocationHandler {

    private Object target;
    private Class<?> targetClass;

    public AdapterInvocationHandler(Object target) {
        this.target = target;
        targetClass = target.getClass();
    }

    public Object invoke(Object proxy, Method method, Object[] args) throws Throwable {
        try {
            Method targetMethod = targetClass.getMethod(method.getName(), method.getParameterTypes());
            if (!method.getReturnType().isAssignableFrom(targetMethod.getReturnType()))
                throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Target (" + target.getClass().getName() + ") does not support: " + method.toGenericString());
            return targetMethod.invoke(target, args);
        } catch (NoSuchMethodException ex) {
            throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Target (" + target.getClass().getName() + ") does not support: " + method.toGenericString());
        } catch (IllegalAccessException ex) {
            throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Target (" + target.getClass().getName() + ") does not declare method to be public: " + method.toGenericString());
        } catch (InvocationTargetException ex) {
            // May throw a NullPointerException if there is no target exception
            throw ex.getTargetException();
        }
    }
}

The important code here is in the try block. This will handle the process of adapting any method calls that are called on the proxy to the inner target object. If a method is called on the interface that isn’t supported (non-public, wrong return type, or just flat out doesn’t exist), then we throw an UnsupportedOperationException. If we catch an InvocationTargetException, we rethrow the exception that caused it via InvocationTargetException.getTargetException. This occurs when the method we called reflectively throws an exception. Java wraps it in a new exception and throws that new exception.

Next, we need something to create the adapters:

public class AdapterFactory {

    public static <T> T createAdapter(Object target, Class<T> interfaceClass) {
        if (!interfaceClass.isInterface())
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Must be an interface: " + interfaceClass.getName());
        return (T) Proxy.newProxyInstance(null, new Class<?>[] { interfaceClass }, new AdapterInvocationHandler(target));
    }
}

You could also nest the AdapterInvocationHandler class in the AdapterFactory class, if you like, so that everything is self-contained in AdapterFactory.

Then to use it:

Foo foo = AdapterFactory.createAdapter(new QuietFoo(), Foo.class);
foo.bar();

This approach requires more code than implementing a single adapter, but will be generic enough that it can be used to create auto-adapters for any class and interface pair, not just the QuietFoo and Foo example. Granted, this method uses reflection (the Proxy class uses reflection, as does our InvocationHandler), which can be slower, but recent improvements in the JVM have made reflection much faster than it used to be.