Since Groovy 1.8.7 we can use the first() and last() methods on Iterable objects. With the first() method we get the first element and with the last() method we get the last element:

def list = 0..100

assert list.first() == 0
assert list.last() == 100

def abc = 'abc' as Character[]

assert abc.first() == 'a'
assert abc.last() == 'c'

def s = ['Groovy', 'Gradle', 'Grails', 'Rocks'] as Set

assert s.first() == 'Groovy'
assert s.last() == 'Rocks'

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Git supports hooks, which are scripts that are fired when certain events happens. The scripts are simply shell scripts and we can use Groovy to run those scripts. We must make Groovy the script language with the hash-bang (#!) header in the Git hook script file. And then we are ready to go and use Groovy as the script language for the Git hooks.

Git hooks are placed in the .git/hooks directory of our project. We create an example script that will use growlnotify to create a notification message with information from the Git commit action. growlnotify is a command-line tool for Mac OSX to send out messages to Growl. Other operating systems also have tools to create notification message from the command-line.

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Groovy closures are powerful. A closure can be passed to methods as argument or defined as a variable. We can even return closures from methods or other closures. We can use the returned closure to execute the logic from the closure with the explicit call() method or the implicit syntax with just the closure object followed by opening and closing parentheses (()).

// Method returns a closure. Method could
// also have been another closure to return
// the closure.
def repeater(times) {
    { value -> value * times }
}

// Use explicit call() method on the return closure
// object from the repeater() method.
assert repeater(2).call('mrhaki') == 'mrhakimrhaki'

// Use implicit call() method on the return closure
// object from the repeater() method. This
// might looks strange at first...
assert repeater(2)('mrhaki') == 'mrhakimrhaki'

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Since Groovy 2 we can use a subset of the Project Coin features from Java 7. But we don't have to run Java 7 to use them in Groovy code. We can use the new features even if we run our Groovy code on older Java versions.

Groovy didn't have to add all Project Coin features, because some are already supported in Groovy, like the switch statement on String objects or diamond operator. A feature that is added is a syntax enhancement to define binary literals. We can now use binary integral literals by prefixing the value with 0b:

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In Groovy we can use the drop() and take() methods to get elements from a collection or String object. Since Groovy 1.8.7 we also can use the dropWhile() and takeWhile() methods and use a closure to define a condition to stop dropping or taking elements. With the dropWhile() method we drop elements or characters until the condition in the closure is true. And the takeWhile() method returns elements from a collection or characters from a String until the condition of the closure is true. In the following example we see how we can use the methods:

def s = "Groovy Rocks!"

assert s.takeWhile { it != 'R' } == 'Groovy '
assert s.dropWhile { it != 'R' } == 'Rocks!'

def list = 0..10

assert 0..4 == list.takeWhile { it < 5 }
assert 5..10 == list.dropWhile { it < 5 }

def m = [name: 'mrhaki', loves: 'Groovy', worksAt: 'JDriven']

assert [name: 'mrhaki'] == m.takeWhile { key, value -> key.length() == 4 }
assert [loves: 'Groovy', worksAt: 'JDriven'] == m.dropWhile { it.key == 'name' }

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In Groovy we can invoke an implicit call() method on a Groovy object. We can leave out the call method name and just use (). We can use meta programming to add an implementation for the call() method to a class. In the following example script we add an implementation for the call() method with a single parameter to the String class. The implementation returns the element found at the range specified by the argument when we invoke the method:

String.metaClass.call = { range ->
    delegate[range]
}

def value = 'Groovy is Gr8'
assert value(0) == 'G'
assert value(10) == 'G'
assert value(4) == value[4]
assert value.call(1) == value(1)
assert value(0..5) == 'Groovy'

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Since Groovy 1.8.3 we can use the implies() method on Boolean types. The implies() method implements a logical implication. This means that if we have two Boolean variables A and B, that if A is true, than B is true. So if A is true than it is implied B is true as well. If A is false than B can be either true or false. We could rewrite the implication as !A or B.

def a = true
def b = true

assert a.implies(b)
assert !(a.implies(false))

assert a.implies(b) == ((!a).or(b))

assert true.implies(true)
assert false.implies(true)
assert false.implies(false)
assert !true.implies(false)

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