Summary

Groovy in Action, Second Edition is a thoroughly revised, comprehensive guide to Groovy programming. It introduces Java developers to the dynamic features that Groovy provides, and shows how to apply Groovy to a range of tasks including building new apps, integration with existing code, and DSL development. Covers Groovy 2.4.

About the Technology

In the last ten years, Groovy has become an integral part of a Java developer's toolbox. Its comfortable, common-sense design, seamless integration with Java, and rich ecosystem that includes the Grails web framework, the Gradle build system, and Spock testing platform have created a large Groovy community

About the Book

Groovy in Action, Second Edition is the undisputed definitive reference on the Groovy language. Written by core members of the Groovy language team, this book presents Groovy like no other can—from the inside out. With relevant examples, careful explanations of Groovy's key concepts and features, and insightful coverage of how to use Groovy in-production tasks, including building new applications, integration with existing code, and DSL development, this is the only book you'll need. Updated for Groovy 2.4.

Some experience with Java or another programming language is helpful. No Groovy experience is assumed.

What's Inside

• Comprehensive coverage of Groovy 2.4 including language features, libraries, and AST transformations
• Dynamic, static, and extensible typing
• Concurrency: actors, data parallelism, and dataflow
• Applying Groovy: Java integration, XML, SQL, testing, and domain-specific language support
• Hundreds of reusable examples

Table of Contents

PART 1 THE GROOVY LANGUAGE

1 ■ Your way to Groovy

2 ■ Overture: Groovy basics

3 ■ Simple Groovy datatypes

4 ■ Collective Groovy datatypes

5 ■ Working with closures

6 ■ Groovy control structures

7 ■ Object orientation, Groovy style

8 ■ Dynamic programming with Groovy

■ Compile-time metaprogramming and AST transformations

10 ■ Groovy as a static language

PART 2 AROUND THE GROOVY LIBRARY

11 ■ Working with builders

12 ■ Working with the GDK

13 ■ Database programming with Groovy

14 ■ Working with XML and JSON

15 ■ Interacting with Web Services

16 ■ Integrating Groovy

PART 3 APPLIED GROOVY

17 ■ Unit testing with Groovy

18 ■ Concurrent Groovy with GPars

19 ■ Domain-specific languages

20 ■ The Groovy ecosystem

About the Authors

Dierk König is a senior software developer, mentor and coach. He publishes in leading German magazines on software development and speaks at international conferences.

Dr. Paul King leads ASERT, an organization based in Brisbane, Australia which provides software development, training, and mentoring services to customers wanting to embrace new technologies, harness best practices and innovate.

Guillaume Laforge is the official Groovy Project Manager and Head of Groovy Development at SpringSource. He founded G2One, Inc. (later acquired by SpringSource), a professional services company dedicated to sustaining and leading the development of both Groovy and Grails.

Hamlet D'Arcy is the founder of the Basel-based Hackergarten open source coding group, and regularly participates and speaks at local and international user groups and conferences.

Cédric Champeau is a core Groovy committer. He joined SpringSource, by Pivotal, in order to help develope the language and he is responsible for the implementation of static type checking and static compilation in Groovy 2.

Erik Pragt is a passionate software developer with a broad range of experience in static languages like Java, and dynamic languages like Groovy. Having worked as a consultant for a broad range of customers mostly in the Telecom, ISP, and banking sector, Erik is now an independent freelance consultant. He founded of the Dutch Groovy and Grails user group, and is a regular conference speaker and trainer.