aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/website/features/experimental/Wither.html
blob: da2156cdab3046ba9296aa6bfb300f8b94d505a2 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html><head>
	<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
	<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../../logi/reset.css" />
	<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../features.css" />
	<link rel="shortcut icon" href="../../favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon" />
	<meta name="description" content="Spice up your java" />
	<title>EXPERIMENTAL - @ExtensionMethod</title>
</head><body><div id="pepper">
	<div class="minimumHeight"></div>
	<div class="meat">
		<div class="header"><a href="../../index.html">Project Lombok</a></div>
		<h1>@Wither</h1>
		<div class="byline">Immutable 'setters' - methods that create a clone but with one changed field.</div>
		<div class="since">
			<h3>Since</h3>
			<p>
				@Wither was introduced as experimental feature in lombok v0.11.4.
			</p>
		</div>
		<div class="experimental">
			<h3>Experimental</h3>
			<p>
			Experimental because:
			<ul>
				<li>Still not sure that <code>@Wither</code> is an appropriate name for this feature.</li>
				<li>Should there be an option to supply a way of cloning the input somehow?</li>
				<li>Should the way that the clone is created by configurable?</li>
				<li>Should we replace @Wither entirely with a builder class?</li>
			</ul>
			Current status: <em>neutral</em> - More feedback requires on the items in the above list before promotion to the main package is warranted.
		</div>
		<div class="overview">
			<h3>Overview</h3>
			<p>
				The next best alternative to a setter for an immutable property is to construct a clone of the object, but with a new value for this one field.
				A method to generate this clone is precisely what <code>@Wither</code> generates: a <code>withFieldName(newValue)</code> method which produces a clone
				except for the new value for the associated field.
			</p><p>
				For example, if you create <code>public class Point { private final int x, y; }</code>, setters make no sense because the fields
				are final. <code>@Wither</code> can generate a <code>withX(int newXValue)</code> method for you which will return a new point with the supplied
				value for <code>x</code> and the same value for <code>y</code>.
			</p><p>
				Like <a href="../GetterSetter.html"><code>@Setter</code></a>, you can specify an access level in case you want the generated wither to be something other than <code>public</code>:<br />
				<code>@Wither(level = AccessLevel.PROTECTED)</code>. Also like <a href="../GetterSetter.html"><code>@Setter</code></a>, you can also put a <code>@Wither</code> annotation on a type, which means
				a 'wither' is generated for each field (even non-final fields).
			</p><p>
				To put annotations on the generated method, you can use <code>onMethod=@_({@AnnotationsHere})</code>; to put annotations on the only parameter of a generated wither method, you can use <code>onParam=@_({@AnnotationsHere})</code>. Be careful though! This is an experimental feature. For more details see the documentation on the <a href="onX.html">onX</a> feature.
			</p>
		</div>
		<div class="snippets">
			<div class="pre">
				<h3>With Lombok</h3>
				<div class="snippet">@HTML_PRE@</div>
			</div>
			<div class="sep"></div>
			<div class="post">
				<h3>Vanilla Java</h3>
				<div class="snippet">@HTML_POST@</div>
			</div>
		</div>
		<div style="clear: left;"></div>
		<div class="overview">
			<h3>Small print</h3><div class="smallprint">
				<p>
					Withers cannot be generated for static fields because that makes no sense.
				</p><p>
					When applying <code>@Wither</code> to a type, static fields and fields whose name start with a $ are skipped.
				</p><p>
					For generating the method names, the first character of the field, if it is a lowercase character, is title-cased, otherwise, it is left unmodified.
					Then, <code>with</code> is prefixed.
				</p><p>
					No method is generated if any method already exists with the same name (case insensitive) and same parameter count. For example, <code>withX(int x)</code>
					will not be generated if there's already a method <code>withX(String... x)</code> even though it is technically possible to make the method. This caveat
					exists to prevent confusion. If the generation of a method is skipped for this reason, a warning is emitted instead. Varargs count as 0 to N parameters.
				</p><p>
					For <code>boolean</code> fields that start with <code>is</code> immediately followed by a title-case letter, nothing is prefixed to generate the wither name.
				</p><p>
					Any annotations named <code>@NonNull</code> (case insensitive) on the field are interpreted as: This field must not ever hold
					<em>null</em>. Therefore, these annotations result in an explicit null check in the generated wither. Also, these
					annotations (as well as any annotation named <code>@Nullable</code> or <code>@CheckForNull</code>) are copied to wither parameter.
				</p>
			</div>
		</div>
		<div class="footer">
			<a href="index.html">Back to experimental features</a> | <a href="FieldDefaults.html">Previous feature (@FieldDefaults)</a> | <a href="Value.html">Next feature (@Value)</a><br />
			<a href="../../credits.html" class="creditsLink">credits</a> | <span class="copyright">Copyright &copy; 2009-2013 The Project Lombok Authors, licensed under the <a href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php">MIT license</a>.</span>
		</div>
		<div style="clear: both;"></div>
	</div>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">
	var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");
	document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
	try {
		var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-9884254-1");
		pageTracker._trackPageview();
	} catch(err) {}
</script>
</body></html>