Groovy 2.5.0 adds the tap method to all objects and changes the method signature of the with method. In a previous post we already learned about the with method. In Groovy 2.5.0 we can add an extra boolean argument to the with method. If the value is false (is default) the with method must return the same value as what the closure invocation returns. If the value is true the object instance on which the with method is invoked is returned. The new tap method is an alias for with(true), so it will always return the object instance.

In the first example we use the tap method to create a new Sample object and set property values and invoke methods of the Sample class:

/**
 * Sample class with some properties
 * and a method.
 */
class Sample {

    String username, email

    Lis labels = []

    void addLabel(value) {
        labels << value
    }

}

// Use tap method to create instance of
// Sample and set properties and invoke methods.
def sample =
        new Sample().tap {
            assert delegate.class.name == 'Sample'

            username = 'mrhaki'
            email = 'email@host.com'
            addLabel 'Groovy'
            addLabel 'Gradle'

            // We use tap, an alias for with(true),
            // so the delegate of the closure,
            // the Sample object, is returned.
        }

assert sample.labels == ['Groovy', 'Gradle']
assert sample.username == 'mrhaki'
assert sample.email == 'email@host.com'

In the following example we use the with method to demonstrate the differences for several invocations using different argument values:

/**
 * Sample class with some properties
 * and a method.
 */
class Sample {

    String username, email

    Lis labels = []

    void addLabel(value) {
        labels << value
    }

}

// Use with method to create instance of
// Sample and set properties and invoke methods.
def sample1 =
        new Sample().with {
            assert delegate.class.name == 'Sample'

            username = 'mrhaki'
            email = 'email@host.com'
            addLabel 'Groovy'
            addLabel 'Gradle'
        }

// With method returns the result
// from the closure. In the previous
// case the return result is null,
// because the last statement addLabel
// is used as return value. addLabel has
// return type void.
assert !sample1


// Use with method to create instance of
// Sample and set properties and invoke methods.
def sample2 =
        new Sample().with {
            assert delegate.class.name == 'Sample'

            username = 'mrhaki'
            email = 'email@host.com'
            addLabel 'Groovy'
            addLabel 'Gradle'

            // Explicitly return delegate of
            // closure, which is the Sample object.
            return delegate
        }

assert sample2.labels == ['Groovy', 'Gradle']
assert sample2.username == 'mrhaki'
assert sample2.email == 'email@host.com'


// Use with method to create instance of
// Sample and set properties and invoke methods.
def sample3 =
        new Sample().with(true) {
            assert delegate.class.name == 'Sample'

            username = 'mrhaki'
            email = 'email@host.com'
            addLabel 'Groovy'
            addLabel 'Gradle'

            // We use with(true), so the
            // delegate of the closure, the Sample
            // object, is returned.
        }

assert sample3.labels == ['Groovy', 'Gradle']
assert sample3.username == 'mrhaki'
assert sample3.email == 'email@host.com'

A good use case for using the with method is to transform an object to another type using values from the object. In the next example we use values from a Sample objects to create a new String:

/**
 * Sample class with some properties
 * and a method.
 */
class Sample {

    String username, email

    Lis labels = []

    void addLabel(value) {
        labels << value
    }

}

def sample =
        new Sample().tap {
            username = 'mrhaki'
            email = 'email@host.com'
            addLabel 'Groovy'
            addLabel 'Gradle'
        }

// The with method can be very useful to
// transform object to another type using
// values from the object.
def user = sample.with { "$username likes ${labels.join(', ')}." }

assert user == 'mrhaki likes Groovy, Gradle.'

Written with Groovy 2.5.0.

Original post

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