Question

I see the following code syntax. Calling

ConfigurationBuilder cb = new ConfigurationBuilder();

cb.setDebugEnabled(true)
  .setOAuthConsumerKey("x11")
  .setOAuthConsumerSecret("x33")
  .setOAuthAccessToken("x55")
  .setOAuthAccessTokenSecret("x66");

All the methods after each other without using the object instance.
How does this work in programming my own class when i want to use this kind of calling methods?

Answer 1

make each of those methods return the same object which they are called on:

class MyClass{
    public MyClass f(){
        //do stuff
        return this;
    }
}

It’s a pretty common pattern. Have you ever seen this in C++?

int number=654;
cout<<"this string and a number: "<<number<<endl;

each call of the operator << returns the same ostream that is passed as its argument, so in this case cout, and since this operation is done left to right, it correctly prints the number after the string.