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<p>Groovy provides some very convenient ways to implement interfaces.</p><h2>Implement interfaces with a closure</h2><p>An interface with a single method can be implemented with a closure like so:</p><table class="wysiwyg-macro" data-macro-name="code" data-macro-default-parameter="java" style="background-image: url(/plugins/servlet/confluence/placeholder/macro-heading?definition=e2NvZGU6amF2YX0&amp;locale=en_GB&amp;version=2); background-repeat: no-repeat;" data-macro-body-type="PLAIN_TEXT"><tr><td class="wysiwyg-macro-body"><pre>// a readable puts chars into a CharBuffer and returns the count of chars added
def readable = { it.put("12 34".reverse()); 5 } as Readable

// the Scanner constructor can take a Readable
def s = new Scanner(readable)
assert s.nextInt() == 43
</pre></td></tr></table><p>You can also use a closure to implement an interface with more than one method. The closure will be invoked for each method on the interface. Since you need a closure whose parameter list matches that of all of the methods you typically will want to use an array as the sole parameter. This can be used just as it is for any Groovy closure and will collect all of the arguments in an array. For example:</p><table class="wysiwyg-macro" data-macro-name="code" data-macro-default-parameter="java" style="background-image: url(/plugins/servlet/confluence/placeholder/macro-heading?definition=e2NvZGU6amF2YX0&amp;locale=en_GB&amp;version=2); background-repeat: no-repeat;" data-macro-body-type="PLAIN_TEXT"><tr><td class="wysiwyg-macro-body"><pre>interface X { 
    void f()
    void g(int n)
    void h(String s, int n)
}

x = {Object[] args -> println "method called with $args"} as X
x.f()
x.g(1)
x.h("hello",2)
</pre></td></tr></table><h2>Implement interfaces with a map</h2><p>More commonly an interface with multiple methods would be implemented with a map like so:</p><table class="wysiwyg-macro" data-macro-name="code" data-macro-default-parameter="java" style="background-image: url(/plugins/servlet/confluence/placeholder/macro-heading?definition=e2NvZGU6amF2YX0&amp;locale=en_GB&amp;version=2); background-repeat: no-repeat;" data-macro-body-type="PLAIN_TEXT"><tr><td class="wysiwyg-macro-body"><pre>impl = [
  i: 10,
  hasNext: { impl.i > 0 },
  next: { impl.i-- },
]
iter = impl as Iterator
while ( iter.hasNext() )
  println iter.next()
</pre></td></tr></table><p>Note this is a rather contrived example, but illustrates the concept.</p><p>You only need to implement those methods that are actually called, but if a method is called that doesn't exist in the map a <em>NullPointerException</em> is thrown. For example:</p><table class="wysiwyg-macro" data-macro-name="code" data-macro-default-parameter="java" style="background-image: url(/plugins/servlet/confluence/placeholder/macro-heading?definition=e2NvZGU6amF2YX0&amp;locale=en_GB&amp;version=2); background-repeat: no-repeat;" data-macro-body-type="PLAIN_TEXT"><tr><td class="wysiwyg-macro-body"><pre>interface X
{ void f(); void g(int n); void h(String s, int n); }

x = [ f: {println "f called"} ] as X
x.f()
//x.g()    // NPE here
</pre></td></tr></table><p>Be careful that you don't accidentally define the map with { }. Can you guess what happens with the following?</p><table class="wysiwyg-macro" data-macro-name="code" data-macro-default-parameter="java" style="background-image: url(/plugins/servlet/confluence/placeholder/macro-heading?definition=e2NvZGU6amF2YX0&amp;locale=en_GB&amp;version=2); background-repeat: no-repeat;" data-macro-body-type="PLAIN_TEXT"><tr><td class="wysiwyg-macro-body"><pre>x = { f: {println "f called"} } as X
x.f()
x.g(1)
</pre></td></tr></table><p>What we've defined here is a closure with a label and a block. Since we've just defined a single closure every method call will invoke the closure. Some languages use { } to define maps so this is an easy mistake until you get used to using [:] to define maps in Groovy.</p><p>Note that using the &quot;as&quot; operator as above requires that you have a static reference to the interface you want to implement with a map. If you have a reference to the java.lang.Class object representing the interface (i.e. do not know or can not hard code the type at script write time) you want to implement, you can use the asType method like this:</p><table class="wysiwyg-macro" data-macro-name="code" data-macro-default-parameter="java" style="background-image: url(/plugins/servlet/confluence/placeholder/macro-heading?definition=e2NvZGU6amF2YX0&amp;locale=en_GB&amp;version=2); background-repeat: no-repeat;" data-macro-body-type="PLAIN_TEXT"><tr><td class="wysiwyg-macro-body"><pre>def loggerInterface = Class.forName( 'my.LoggerInterface' )
def logger = [
               log : { Object[] params -> println "LOG: ${params[0]}"; if( params.length > 1 ) params[1].printStackTrace() },
               close : { println "logger.close called" }
             ].asType( loggerInterface )
</pre></td></tr></table><p>See also:</p><ul><li><a class="confluence-link" href="/display/GROOVY/Developer+Testing+using+Closures+instead+of+Mocks" data-linked-resource-id="66905" data-linked-resource-type="page" data-linked-resource-default-alias="Developer Testing using Closures instead of Mocks" data-base-url="http://docs.codehaus.org">Developer Testing using Closures instead of Mocks</a></li></ul>