Note: information on this page refers to Ceylon 1.0, not to the current release.

Callable references

A callable reference is an expression that references something (a function, method, or class) that can be invoked by specifying an argument list.

Usage 

value classReference = String;
value methodReference = 1.plus;
value functionReference = sum<Integer>;

Description

Callable references introduce a level of indirection between the definition of a function, method, or class, and the invocation of the function, method, or class, allowing the definition of generic functions, called higher order functions, that operate upon callable references.

Type

The type of a callable reference is the callable type of the thing being referenced, so referring to the example above,

  • the type of classReference is String({Character*}),
  • the type of methodReference is Integer(Integer).
  • the type of functionReference is Integer({Integer+}),

Unreferenceable things

It's not possible to obtain a callable reference to an abstract class, because calling it would be the same as instantiating the abstract class. So, for example, the following code is illegal:

value objectReference = Object;

A callable reference to a generic declaration must specify type arguments, as shown by functionReference in the example above. This code is illegal:

value functionReference = sum;

Invocation

A callable reference may be invoked, for example:

classReference({'h', 'e', 'l', 'l', 'o'})

The interface Callable doesn't encode information about parameter names. So a callable reference may only be invoked with a positional argument list, not a named argument list.

See also