What is Delegate ??
Suppose a scenario, where User and Account classes are linked as below:
class Account {
String email
String password
// ... other fields
}
class User {
Account account
String name
String address
// ... other fields
}
At the time of creating a new User, and accessing the user members, we write something of this sort:
// For initalizing the user class first we have to initializing Account class. Account account = new Account(email:"amit.kumar@gmail.com", password:"intelligrape") // Now have to pass that account instance for initializing User class User user = new User(account:account, name:"Amit", address:"Intelligrape City") // For Accessing User's Account information we have to use "user.account" as prefix println user.account.email println user.account.password
It can be clearly seen that we have to write “user.account” as a prefix for accessing user’s account information and have to initialize account info separately. If we use @Delegate annotation before account declaration as below:
@Delegate Account account = new Account()
Time is saved and groovy will manage account for user automatically. We do not need to care for initializing account information separately.
// Initializing account information with User class. User user = new User(email:"amit.kumar@gmail.com", password:"intelligrape", name:"Amit", address:"Intelligrape City") // Accessing User Account info with "user" prefix only instead of "user.account" prefix println user.email println user.password
Note: When you use @Delegate annotation, all the methods of delegated class(Account) are implement in current class(User), so we will be able to access those members with prefix (“user”) only.
Amit Kumar
amit.kumar@intelligrape.com
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Thanks for Information ,
Can you explain , how delegate will work for Collection Object ,
for example, User can have multiple account ,
Thanks and Regards
Senthil