Saturday, July 31, 2021

When to Make a Method Static in Java? Example

Making a method static in Java is an important decision. Though, static keyword is one of the fundamental concepts, many times programmers get confused to make a particular method static or not. In Java programming, the main motivation for making a method static is convenience. You can call a static method without creating any object, just by using its class name. So if you need a method, which you want to call directly by class name, make that method static. Utility classes e.g. java.lang.Math or StringUtils are good examples of classes, which use static methods. Before making a method static, you should look into the limitations of static methods as well, as you can not override static methods in Java

By keeping these properties in mind, we can make few rules, which will help to decide when to make a method static in Java and when to use them. 

In this Java article, we will learn more about the benefits and limitations of making a method static, and also see a couple of examples of static methods from JDK to learn when and how to use the static methods in Java.


What does the static method do in Java?

When you see a static method in Java code, What do you assume? What reasoning and assumptions does a reader make when he sees a static method? This is important to learn to ensure we are using the static method correctly.

1) Static method doesn't modify the state of the object. Since the state of an object is maintained as instance variables, and Java doesn't allow non-static variables in the static context. Modern days IDE like Netbeans also shows a static method in italics to differentiate it from other methods.

2) Static method mostly operates on arguments, almost all static method accepts arguments, perform some calculation and return value.


How to use static method in Java


Rules to make a method static in Java

There are no hard and fast, well-written rules, to decide when to make a method static or not, But there are few observations based upon experience, which not only help to make a method static but also teaches when to use the static method in Java. You should consider making a method static in Java :

1) If a method doesn't modify the state of the object, or not using any instance variables.

2) You want to call the method without creating an instance of that class.

3) A method is a good candidate for being static, if it only works on arguments provided to it e.g. public int factorial(int number){}, this method only operates on the number provided as an argument.

4) Utility methods are also the good candidates of being static e.g. StringUtils.isEmpty(String text), this is a utility method to check if a String is empty or not.

5) If the function of the method will remain static across class hierarchy e.g. equals() method is not a good candidate for making static because every Class can redefine equality.



When to use the static method in Java?

How to use static method in JavaNow, we know the benefits and limitations of making a method static in Java, we can see a couple of scenarios where we can use static methods. A factory design pattern provides good use of the static method. You can use the static method to create instances of a class. Even Effective Java book advises about using static factory method, a couple of example of these in Java library is creating thread pool from Executors class. 


Executors provides lots of static methods to create different types of thread pool e.g. public static ExecutorService newCachedThreadPool(), public static ExecutorService newFixedThreadPool(int nThreads) etc. 

Another interesting use of static methods from JDK is collection classes e.g. Collections and Arrays which provides lot of static utility methods to operate on different kinds of collection. 


A static method can also be combined with variable arguments to create a collection of explicitly elements e.g. EnumSet.of(E first, E... rest). Apart from these, if you loot at Apache commons-lang library, you will find a pattern of utils class e.g. StringUtils, ArrayUtils, which provides utility methods to operate on String and arrays. 


One more interesting use of the static method I have seen is the valueOf() method inside different value classes e.g. java.lang.String, though this is also an example of the factory methodit's also a nice way to convert one type to another. 

For example, valueOf() can also be used to convert String to Integer in Java. In short, it makes sense to use static methods :

1) Along with creational design pattern e.g. Factory and Singleton.

2) As utility method, which operates on arguments.

3) A conversion tool e.g. valueOf().

That's all about when to make a method static in Java. We have seen benefits and limitations of making a method static, and few examples of static methods from JDK. JDK examples will also help you to decide when to use the static method in Java.

8 comments:

  1. nice explanation. thanks

    how marker interface works internally. can you post regarding this topic.

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  2. Static is good to use. I prefer to make all method static and make object static, this way I can use method of any object from any other object without stupid use of references and new().

    The new() operation should never have been put into the Java language. It is a terrible concept when you can simply declare everything static and make develop much easier.

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  3. can you provide some thoughts on making a method static or not with respect to multithreading?

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  4. In addition to the answer to the above question who asked on making a method static or not with respect to multithreading?

    If an method which is changing the state of an object and that object is used by multiple resources (resource could also be an object such as User,or any entity dependent on the changed object) then we can't make it static.Therefore an object operated in multi-threaded environment changing state of an object cannot be static.

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  5. Hi Javin,please put some emphasize on second point as well in brief i.e when we need to call a method without using any instance such as Single threaded task i.e where only one object active at a time.

    Great article

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  6. Thanks for this insightful article. This is the first time I know about use of static methods, in past I didn't even know about how to call a static method, but once I know that you can call them just by using class name, I am kind of making every method static in my code. This gives me so many error like you can not use non static members in static context, then I started making all my member variable static, now my program is working fine. Do you think its right? Does making all variable and method static has any disadvantage in Java?

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  7. One reason to make your method static must be performance. Static method Invocations is 15%-20% faster than virtual method invocation. It's also good programming practice, because you can tell from the method signature that calling the method can't alter the object's state.

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  8. *Making all variables static has disadvantage.
    Let's take an example of BankAccount class which has three variables accNo, accName, balance
    for every account holder (instance of BankAccount) a copy of these three variable will be created if these are declared non static. However if we created them static then in this case only one copy would be created and every time a new instance is create the same copy would be shared and updated and there would be loss of data.
    Identify the need of sharing data among instance only that variable should be static not all.
    The good use of static key word is on final variables it assures a single copy of variable for all instances.
    So don't make your all variables static instead create a one object in your static method to access the non static data.

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