How Java 8 Binds Generic Types to Method References

Integer example = 1;

// We can bind the instance variables, in this case just the return type is bound but there couple be method parameters also
Supplier<String> s = example::toString;

// We can bind to static method, here the generic parameter are the method parameter and return type
Supplier<Long> f = System::currentTimeMillis;
Function<Integer,Integer> f = example::compareTo;

 A less common formulation is to pass in instance methods and find the first generic parameter of of the function to be the type; this allows you to easily pass in a range of actions to operate on a common type:

Function<Integer,String> f = Integer::toString

For example, you can create an equals method that works on a subset of properties using functions mapped to instance methods as in the above example:

public static <T> boolean equals(T one, T two, Function<? super T, ?>... accessors) {

    if (one == two) {
        return true;
    } else  if (one==null || two==null) {
        return false;
    }

    return Stream.of(accessors).allMatch(accessor ->
        Objects.equals(accessor.apply(one),accessor.apply(two)));
}

if (equals(one, two, Thing::getName, Thing:getOtherProperty)) ...;

Finally you can also bind the exception thrown from the method to one of the generic parameters. (Here I am using ThrowingException and ThrowingSupplier my home brew interfaces that are like there namesakes but have a generic parameter E for the exception thrown) This allows you to make you "closure" transparent to exceptions. This is more useful in a lot of cases when compared to the Stream throw nothing and "throws Exception" extremes.

ThrowingException<String,Integer,NumberFormatException> te = Integer::parseInt;

You can write funky closure methods that will throw different exceptions based on the passed-in method reference--no more catch (Exception).

public static <T, E extends Exception> T withCC(Class<?> contextClass, 
   ThrowingSupplier<T,E> action) throws E {

    Thread t = Thread.current();
    ClassLoader cl = t.getContextClassLoader();
    try {
        t.setContextClassLoader(contextClass.getClassLoader());
        return action.get();
    } finally {
        s.setContextClassLoader(cl);
    }
}


// Throws IOException, complier knows that this method call throws IOException

withCC(Example.class, () -> {
    ...
    ... new FileOutpuStream(file); ...
    ...
});

// Throws another exception, complier knows that this method call throws RMIExeption

withCC(Example.class, () -> {
        ...
        throw new RMIException();
    });

Once you understand the last two, method references start to become far more interesting.