Inline method

[aakash bhatt]

What is an inline method and when do we do that
Regards,
aakash

[Peter Kristensson]

Hiya!
What is an inline method and when do we do that?
If I'm not completelty mistaken, inlining is a thing that's happening during compile-time. The compiler inserts the code for a method where the method itself is called. I think that this only happens when the called method is in the same class as the caller-method.
I'll try to make an example.
Consider this class:

import java.util.List;
import java.util.Iterator;
public class MyClass {
   
   public MyClass() {}
   public void printList(List list) {
      Iterator listIterator = list.Iterator();
      while (listIterator.hasNext()) {
         //this is the call that will be replaced by the compiler.
         printElement(listIterator.next());
      }
   }
   public void printElement(Object o) {
      System.out.println(o);
   }
}

Now this would be transformed to something like this during compile-time:

  
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Iterator;
public class MyClass {
   
   public MyClass() {}
   public void printList(List list) {
      Iterator listIterator = list.Iterator();
      while (listIterator.hasNext()) {
         //the method call has been replaced with the code from printElement
         System.out.println(listIterator.next());
      }
   }
   public void printElement(Object o) {
      System.out.println(o);
   }
}

Not sure that it will be exactly this way, but the basiscs are ther I think.
Hope this helps.
/Peter

[Mani Ram]

Peter's explantion on inline method is correct.
But however, a method MAY be made inline if it is declared final.
I don't thing all the final methods will be made inline. It is upto the compiler to decide to make a final method inline or not.
Inline methods reduces the overheads on method calls.