Why java.util.function doesn't define specialized functional interfaces for all primitive types?

Question

Java 8 provides several functional interfaces in package java.util.function.

For each basic function (Function, Consumer, Predicate, Supplier...) there are other defined where the type parameter is specialized for the following primitive type: double, int, long.

This questions is about the motivation of such interfaces: Why are there primitive functions like DoubleFunction in Java 8

But why not all the primitive types are covered (e.g. float is missing)?

Marko Topolnik · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-11 07:51:41Z

10

This was decided in order to prevent API size explosion. Being forced to introduce primitive specializations at all is already a pain point, so the compromise was to specialize only for the essential types, which are long and double, and additionally for int as the most prominent primitive type: the type of array indices and integer literals. All other types can be promoted to these.

In this post on the lambda-dev mailing list you can read the official statement from Brian Goetz.

edited Jul 11, 2014 at 7:51

answered Jul 11, 2014 at 7:42

Marko Topolnik

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