functional programming - Does Java support Currying?

Question

I was wondering if there is any way to pull that in Java. I think it is not possible without native support for closures.

Answer 1

Java 8 (released March 18th 2014) does support currying. The example Java code posted in the answer by missingfaktor can be rewritten as:

import java.util.function.*;
import static java.lang.System.out;

// Tested with JDK 1.8.0-ea-b75
public class CurryingAndPartialFunctionApplication
{
   public static void main(String[] args)
   {
      IntBinaryOperator simpleAdd = (a, b) -> a + b;
      IntFunction<IntUnaryOperator> curriedAdd = a -> b -> a + b;

      // Demonstrating simple add:
      out.println(simpleAdd.applyAsInt(4, 5));

      // Demonstrating curried add:
      out.println(curriedAdd.apply(4).applyAsInt(5));

      // Curried version lets you perform partial application:
      IntUnaryOperator adder5 = curriedAdd.apply(5);
      out.println(adder5.applyAsInt(4));
      out.println(adder5.applyAsInt(6));
   }
}

... which is quite nice. Personally, with Java 8 available I see little reason to use an alternative JVM language such as Scala or Clojure. They provide other language features, of course, but that's not enough to justify the transition cost and the weaker IDE/tooling/libraries support, IMO.