A very useful feature in Groovy is the use of named arguments. Instead of a list of arguments for a method or constructor we can use a Map argument. If the argument is the first in the list of arguments then Groovy allows use to use named arguments when we invoke the method or constructor. This means all key/value arguments are gathered together and assigned to the Map argument. Inside our method or constructor we can then access the Map argument and get the values for the keys. This leads to better readable code and that is very useful. IntelliJ IDEA has a Groovy intention to turn method parameters into a Map parameter for named arguments with a few mouse clicks.

Suppose we have the following source code with a simple method definition, 2 arguments, and the invocation of the method:

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IntelliJ IDEA has very good Groovy support. It also provides some intentions especially for the Groovy language. For example we can turn a map definition into a Groovy class definition with a few simple clicks.

The following screenshot shows a simple map declaration with two keys: username and alias. If we use the shortcut for intentions (Alt+Enter on my computer) we can choose the Convert to Class option:

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