Does Java support default parameter values?

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I came across some Java code that had the following structure:

public MyParameterizedFunction(String param1, int param2)
{
    this(param1, param2, false);
}

public MyParameterizedFunction(String param1, int param2, boolean param3)
{
    //use all three parameters here
}

I know that in C++ I can assign a parameter a default value. For example:

void MyParameterizedFunction(String param1, int param2, bool param3=false);

Does Java support this kind of syntax? Are there any reasons why this two step syntax is preferable?

27 Answers

No, the structure you found is how Java handles it (that is, with overloading instead of default parameters).

For constructors, See Effective Java: Programming Language Guide's Item 1 tip (Consider static factory methods instead of constructors) if the overloading is getting complicated. For other methods, renaming some cases or using a parameter object can help. This is when you have enough complexity that differentiating is difficult. A definite case is where you have to differentiate using the order of parameters, not just number and type.

No, but you can use the Builder Pattern, as described in this Stack Overflow answer.

As described in the linked answer, the Builder Pattern lets you write code like

Student s1 = new StudentBuilder().name("Eli").buildStudent();
Student s2 = new StudentBuilder()
                 .name("Spicoli")
                 .age(16)
                 .motto("Aloha, Mr Hand")
                 .buildStudent();

in which some fields can have default values or otherwise be optional.

Instead of using:

void parameterizedMethod(String param1, int param2) {
    this(param1, param2, false);
}

void parameterizedMethod(String param1, int param2, boolean param3) {
    //use all three parameters here
}

You could utilize java's Optional functionality by having a single method:

void parameterizedMethod(String param1, int param2, @Nullable Boolean param3) {
    param3 = Optional.ofNullable(param3).orElse(false);
    //use all three parameters here
}

The main difference is that you have to use wrapper classes instead of primitive Java types to allow null input.Boolean instead of boolean, Integer instead of int and so on.

No, but the simplest way to implement this is:

public myParameterizedFunction(String param1, int param2, Boolean param3) {

    param3 = param3 == null ? false : param3;
}

public myParameterizedFunction(String param1, int param2) {

    this(param1, param2, false);
}

or instead of the ternary operator, you can use if:

public myParameterizedFunction(String param1, int param2, Boolean param3) {

    if (param3 == null) {
        param3 = false;
    }
}

public myParameterizedFunction(String param1, int param2) {

    this(param1, param2, false);
}

As Scala was mentioned, Kotlin is also worth mentioning. In Kotlin function parameters can have default values as well and they can even refer to other parameters:

fun read(b: Array<Byte>, off: Int = 0, len: Int = b.size) {
    ...
}

Like Scala, Kotlin runs on the JVM and can be easily integrated into existing Java projects.

It is not supported in java as in other language for ex. Kotlin.

No.

You can achieve the same behavior by passing an Object which has smart defaults. But again it depends what your case is at hand.

No. In general Java doesn't have much (any) syntactic sugar, since they tried to make a simple language.

If you really want to, you can check it manually by using null:

public MyParameterizedFunction(String param1, int param2, boolean param3)
{
    if(param3 == null) {
        param3 = false;
    }
}

However i heavily recommend using something else, like overloading or a static factory. Maybe you can get away with this, but it can lead to unexcspected behavior. For example you could have an error in your code, so that your boolean never gets a value. In this case you would not get a NullPointerException. Instead it will look like it was set to false, which can be very confusing to debug.

I've now spent quite some time to figure out how to use this with methods that return values, and I haven't seen any examples so far, I thought it might be useful to add this here:

int foo(int a) {
    // do something with a
    return a;
}

int foo() {
    return foo(0); // here, 0 is a default value for a
}

constructor like for method

static void popuping() {
    popuping("message", "title");
}
static void popuping(String message) {
    popuping(message, "title");
}
static void popuping(String message, String title){
    JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, message,
            title, JOptionPane.INFORMATION_MESSAGE);
}

One idea is to use String... args

public class Sample {
   void demoMethod(String... args) {
      for (String arg : args) {
         System.out.println(arg);
      }
   }
   public static void main(String args[] ) {
      new Sample().demoMethod("ram", "rahim", "robert");
      new Sample().demoMethod("krishna", "kasyap");
      new Sample().demoMethod();
   }
}

Output

ram
rahim
robert
krishna
kasyap

from https://www.tutorialspoint.com/Does-Java-support-default-parameter-values-for-a-method

You can use the following-

public void mop(Integer x) {
  // Define default values
        x = x == null ? 200 : x;
}

Yes = use Kotlin! )))

It is a Joke;

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