In Groovy 1.6 a much simpler mechanism for using categories/mixins was introduced. Previously the methods of a category class had to be declared static, and the first parameter indicates which class of objects they could be applied to (as in your Foo
class above).
I find this somewhat awkward because once the methods of the category are "mixed in" to the target class they are non-static, but in the category class they are static.
Anyway, since Groovy 1.6 you can do this instead
// Define the category
class MyCategory {
void doIt() {
println "done"
}
void doIt2() {
println "done2"
}
}
// Mix the category into the target class
@Mixin (MyCategory)
class MyClass {
void callMixin() {
doIt()
}
}
// Test that it works
def obj = new MyClass()
obj.callMixin()
A few other features are available. If you want to restrict the classes that the category can be applied to, use the @Category
annotation. For example, if you only want to apply MyCategory
to MyClass
(or it s subclasses), define it as:
@Category(MyClass)
class MyCategory {
// Implementation omitted
}
Instead of mixing the categories in at compile-time using @Mixin
(as above), you can mix them in at runtime instead using:
MyClass.mixin MyCategory
In you re using Grails, Bootstrap.groovy
is a place where you might do this.