Java Supplier

last modified July 8, 2023

Java Supplier tutorial shows how to work with the Supplier functional interface in Java.

Supplier

Java Supplier is a functional interface which represents an operation that returns a result. Supplier does not take any arguments.

@FunctionalInterface
public interface Supplier<T> {

    T get();
}

T is the type of results supplied by the supplier.

Java Supplier example

The following example creates a simple supplier.

package com.zetcode;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.function.Supplier;

public class SupplierEx {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        var words = List.of("falcon", "cup", "fun", "cloud");

        var res = upperWords(words);
        System.out.println(res);
    }

    public static List<String> upperWords(List<String> words) {

        var uppered = new ArrayList<String>();

        for (var word : words) {

            Supplier<String> upperSupplier = word::toUpperCase;
            uppered.add(upperSupplier.get());
        }

        return uppered;
    }
}

The program turns words into uppercase using upperSupplier.

Supplier<String> upperSupplier = word::toUpperCase;

The Supplier returns a string. It references the toUpperCase method of the String type.

[FALCON, CUP, FUN, CLOUD]

Java IntSupplier

IntSupplier represents a supplier of int-valued results. This is the int-producing primitive specialization of Supplier.

import java.util.stream.IntStream;

public class SupplierEx2 {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        IntSupplier randIntSupp = () -> new Random().nextInt(40);

        System.out.println(randIntSupp.getAsInt());
        System.out.println(randIntSupp.getAsInt());

        System.out.println("--------------------");

        IntStream.generate(randIntSupp).limit(6).forEach(System.out::println);
    }
}

The program creates a supplier of random integers.

IntSupplier randIntSupp = () -> new Random().nextInt(40);

The IntSupplier returns a random integer in range [0,40).

System.out.println(randIntSupp.getAsInt());

We get a random integer with getAsInt.

IntStream.generate(randIntSupp).limit(6).forEach(System.out::println);

A stream of six random integers is generated.

4
35
--------------------
31
4
10
30
15
8

Java CompletableFuture.supplyAsync

The Supplier interface is used in various Java APIs. For instance, the CompletableFuture.supplyAsync returns a CompletableFuture that is asynchronously completed.

package com.zetcode;

import java.util.Random;
import java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException;
import java.util.concurrent.TimeUnit;

public class SupplierEx3 {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws ExecutionException, InterruptedException {

        CompletableFuture<Integer> future = CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(() -> {
            try {
                TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(1);
            } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                throw new IllegalStateException(e);
            }
            return new Random().nextInt(40);
        });

        System.out.println(future.get());
    }
}

The program returns a random integer in range [0,40) in an async operation.

In this article we have worked with Java Supplier interface.

CompletableFuture<Integer> future = CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(() -> {
    try {
        TimeUnit.SECONDS.sleep(1);
    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
        throw new IllegalStateException(e);
    }
    return new Random().nextInt(40);
});

CompletableFuture takes a Supplier as a parameter.

In this article we have worked with the Supplier Java interface.

Author

My name is Jan Bodnar and I am a passionate programmer with many years of programming experience. I have been writing programming articles since 2007. So far, I have written over 1400 articles and 8 e-books. I have over eight years of experience in teaching programming.

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