Is it possible to retrieve lambda expression at runtime

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I was playing with Java8 Lambda last night and I was wondering if it is possible to retrieve the Lambda expression at runtime. In short and as far as I understood, Lambda expression are converted into (static) methods at runtime and then called using InvokeDynamics.

Let's take an example like this:

people.filter(person -> person.getAge() >= minAge);

where filter would be a custom method taking a Predicate<T>as a parameter. Inside this filter method, how could I retrieve the argument in a form similar (or identical) to the Lambda expression (person -> person.getAge() >= minAge) in this case ?

I tried to read the generated bytecode of the argument's class using ASM5_BETA but I couldn't go further than using a ClassVisitor and a MethodVisitor to reach the method associated with the Lambda expression.

public <T> List<T> filter(Filter<T> expression) {
    try {
        Class<? extends Filter> expressionClass = expression.getClass();
        byte[] content = getClassContent(expressionClass);
        ClassReader classReader = new ClassReader(content);
        classReader.accept(new PredicateClassVisitor(), 0);
    } catch (Throwable e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return null;
}

private byte[] getClassContent(Class<? extends Filter> expressionClazz) throws  
               IOException {
    InputStream stream = Thread.currentThread().getContextClassLoader()
                           .getResourceAsStream(getClassName(expressionClazz.getName()));
    return IOUtils.toByteArray(stream);
}

private String getClassName(String expressionClazz) {
    return expressionClazz.substring(0, expressionClazz.indexOf('$'))
           .replace('.', '/') + ".class";
}

static class PredicateClassVisitor extends ClassVisitor {

    public PredicateClassVisitor() {
        super(Opcodes.ASM4);
    }

    @Override
    public MethodVisitor visitMethod(int i, String s, String s2, String s3, 
                                     String[] strings) {
        return new PredicateMethodVisitor();
    }
}

static class PredicateMethodVisitor extends MethodVisitor {

    public PredicateMethodVisitor() {
        super(Opcodes.ASM4);
    }

    @Override
    public void visitInvokeDynamicInsn(String name, String desc, Handle bsm,
                                       Object... bsmArgs) {
        for (Object object : bsmArgs) {
              System.out.println(" " + object.toString());
        }
    }
} 

I'm not sure this is the right path to follow, and I was wondering if there were more appropriate tooling in ASM or in JDK8 for such a purpose.

Thanks for any advice ;-) Best regards, Xavier

2 Answers
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