Question

I have read this question and I’m still not sure whether it is possible to keep pointers to methods in an array in Java. If anyone knows if this is possible (or not), it would be a real help. I’m trying to find an elegant solution of keeping a list of Strings and associated functions without writing a mess of hundreds of if statements.

Cheers

Answer 1

Java doesn’t have a function pointer per se (or “delegate” in C# parlance). This sort of thing tends to be done with anonymous subclasses.

public interface Worker {
  void work();
}

class A {
  void foo() { System.out.println("A"); }
}

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

A a = new A();
B b = new B();

Worker[] workers = new Worker[] {
  new Worker() { public void work() { a.foo(); } },
  new Worker() { public void work() { b.bar(); } }
};

for (Worker worker : workers) {
  worker.work();
}