Meet Groovy: A High Level Scripting Language for the Java Platform

CGIDir
Wednesday, April 19, 2006; 05:14 AM

Groovy is a relatively new scripting language, whose final 1.0 release is expected in a month or two. From the official FAQ: "Think of it as a Ruby or Python like language that is tightly integrated with the Java platform - allowing you the same powerful and concise coding syntax as Ruby or Pyton but allowing you to stay on the JVM and protect your investment in J2SE, J2EE and all the plethora of great useful Java code out there."

Groovy JSR-05 was released in February 2006, and it is the last release of the JSR-xx line. The next release will be the first RC-x release before the final 1.0. 

As decided during the last Groovy conference in Paris, the two main tasks towards the final version of the projects are the rework of the scoping algorithms, and the rewrite and enhancements of the Meta-Object Protocol. JSR-05 contains these new scoping algorithms. A lot of very old bugs regarding nested closures or creation of variables shadowing other variables have been fixed, as well as bugs regarding visibility of fields, among other things. The next step before RC-1 is the work on the MOP and name resolution algorithms.

Apart from the work on scoping, a few important bugs or enhancements have found their way in the latest release JSR-05:

• multidimensional arrays are now fully supported
• Groovysh supports multiline scripts again
• an experimental feature has been added to GroovyClassLoader to allow reloading of classes when changed
• small improvements to GroovyShell and GroovyScriptEngine
• possibility to call methods with method names defined in Strings or GStrings: "foo-bar"(), or "$baz"()