In logic expressions remaining part would be skipped if it is unnecessary
boolean b = false && checkSomething( something)
//checkSomething() doesn't get called
What is a good way to achieve the same with arithmetic expressions ?
int i = 0 * calculateSomethig ( something )
It is possible to add ifs before * . But is there a more elegant way to solve this problem? Without of adding much stuff into expression, so that expression itself would look as close to original as possible
Why i do not want to use ifs? from
return calculateA() * calculateB()
it'll become bulky and unclear
int result
int a = calculateA();
if (a!=0) {
result = a*calculateB()
}else{
result = 0
}
return result
Why do i bother with this at all? Because calculation methods might be expensive
&& and || are called short-circuit operators because they don't evaluate if the JVM will find the value of the whole expression without evaluating the whole expression. For example, the JVM does not have to evaluate the second part of the following expression to tell it evaluates to true:
6 == (2 + 4) || 8 == 9
The JVM does not have to evaluate all of the following expression either to tell it evaluates to false:
9 == 8 && 7 == 7
The multiplication operator (*) is not a short-circuit operator. And so, it does not behave that way. You can do this as you mentioned using if statements. There is no predefined way to do this.
You can create a structure that uses lambdas to evaluate its arguments lazily:
class LazyMul implements IntSupplier {
private final IntSupplier [] args;
private LazyMul(IntSupplier[] args) {
//argument checking omitted for brevity :)
this.args = args;
}
public static LazyMul of(IntSupplier ... args) {
return new LazyMul(args);
}
@Override
public int getAsInt() {
int res = 1;
for (IntSupplier arg: args) {
res *= arg.getAsInt();
if (res == 0)
break;
}
return res;
}
}
Of course this is even longer but using it is as simple as LazyMul.of(this::calculateA, this::calculateB), so if you use it several times, it's better than having an if every time around.
Unfortunately with complicated (particularly nested) expressions readability suffers, but these are the limitations of Java as a language.