Methods to facilitate the creation of simple "function objects" that implement one or more interfaces by delegation to a provided MethodHandle, possibly after type adaptation and partial evaluation of arguments. These methods are typically used as bootstrap methods for invokedynamic call sites, to support the lambda expression and method reference expression features of the Java Programming Language.

Indirect access to the behavior specified by the provided MethodHandle proceeds in order through three phases:

• Linkage occurs when the methods in this class are invoked. They take as arguments an interface to be implemented (typically a functional interface, one with a single abstract method), a name and signature of a method from that interface to be implemented, a method handle describing the desired implementation behavior for that method, and possibly other additional metadata, and produce a CallSite whose target can be used to create suitable function objects. Linkage may involve dynamically loading a new class that implements the target interface. The CallSite can be considered a "factory" for function objects and so these linkage methods are referred to as "metafactories".
• Capture occurs when the CallSite's target is invoked, typically through an invokedynamic call site, producing a function object. This may occur many times for a single factory CallSite. Capture may involve allocation of a new function object, or may return an existing function object. The behavior MethodHandle may have additional parameters beyond those of the specified interface method; these are referred to as captured parameters, which must be provided as arguments to the CallSite target, and which may be early-bound to the behavior MethodHandle. The number of captured parameters and their types are determined during linkage.
• Invocation occurs when an implemented interface method is invoked on a function object. This may occur many times for a single function object. The method referenced by the behavior MethodHandle is invoked with the captured arguments and any additional arguments provided on invocation, as if by MethodHandle.invoke(Object...).

It is sometimes useful to restrict the set of inputs or results permitted at invocation. For example, when the generic interface Predicate<T> is parameterized as Predicate<String>, the input must be a String, even though the method to implement allows any Object. At linkage time, an additional MethodType parameter describes the "instantiated" method type; on invocation, the arguments and eventual result are checked against this MethodType.

This class provides two forms of linkage methods: a standard version (metafactory(MethodHandles.Lookup, String, MethodType, MethodType, MethodHandle, MethodType)) using an optimized protocol, and an alternate version altMetafactory(MethodHandles.Lookup, String, MethodType, Object...)). The alternate version is a generalization of the standard version, providing additional control over the behavior of the generated function objects via flags and additional arguments. The alternate version adds the ability to manage the following attributes of function objects:

• Bridging. It is sometimes useful to implement multiple variations of the method signature, involving argument or return type adaptation. This occurs when multiple distinct VM signatures for a method are logically considered to be the same method by the language. The flag FLAG_BRIDGES indicates that a list of additional MethodTypes will be provided, each of which will be implemented by the resulting function object. These methods will share the same name and instantiated type.
• Multiple interfaces. If needed, more than one interface can be implemented by the function object. (These additional interfaces are typically marker interfaces with no methods.) The flag FLAG_MARKERS indicates that a list of additional interfaces will be provided, each of which should be implemented by the resulting function object.
• Serializability. The generated function objects do not generally support serialization. If desired, FLAG_SERIALIZABLE can be used to indicate that the function objects should be serializable. Serializable function objects will use, as their serialized form, instances of the class SerializedLambda, which requires additional assistance from the capturing class (the class described by the MethodHandles.Lookup parameter caller); see SerializedLambda for details.

Assume the linkage arguments are as follows:

• invokedType (describing the CallSite signature) has K parameters of types (D1..Dk) and return type Rd;
• samMethodType (describing the implemented method type) has N parameters, of types (U1..Un) and return type Ru;
• implMethod (the MethodHandle providing the implementation has M parameters, of types (A1..Am) and return type Ra (if the method describes an instance method, the method type of this method handle already includes an extra first argument corresponding to the receiver);
• instantiatedMethodType (allowing restrictions on invocation) has N parameters, of types (T1..Tn) and return type Rt.

Then the following linkage invariants must hold:

• Rd is an interface
• implMethod is a direct method handle
• samMethodType and instantiatedMethodType have the same arity N, and for i=1..N, Ti and Ui are the same type, or Ti and Ui are both reference types and Ti is a subtype of Ui
• Either Rt and Ru are the same type, or both are reference types and Rt is a subtype of Ru
• K + N = M
• For i=1..K, Di = Ai
• For i=1..N, Ti is adaptable to Aj, where j=i+k
• The return type Rt is void, or the return type Ra is not void and is adaptable to Rt

Further, at capture time, if implMethod corresponds to an instance method, and there are any capture arguments (K > 0), then the first capture argument (corresponding to the receiver) must be non-null.

A type Q is considered adaptable to S as follows:

Facilitates the creation of simple "function objects" that implement one or more interfaces by delegation to a provided MethodHandle, after appropriate type adaptation and partial evaluation of arguments. Typically used as a bootstrap method for invokedynamic call sites, to support the lambda expression and method reference expression features of the Java Programming Language.

This is the standard, streamlined metafactory; additional flexibility is provided by altMetafactory(MethodHandles.Lookup, String, MethodType, Object...). A general description of the behavior of this method is provided above.

When the target of the CallSite returned from this method is invoked, the resulting function objects are instances of a class which implements the interface named by the return type of invokedType, declares a method with the name given by invokedName and the signature given by samMethodType. It may also override additional methods from Object.

Facilitates the creation of simple "function objects" that implement one or more interfaces by delegation to a provided MethodHandle, after appropriate type adaptation and partial evaluation of arguments. Typically used as a bootstrap method for invokedynamic call sites, to support the lambda expression and method reference expression features of the Java Programming Language.

This is the general, more flexible metafactory; a streamlined version is provided by metafactory(java.lang.invoke.MethodHandles.Lookup, String, MethodType, MethodType, MethodHandle, MethodType). A general description of the behavior of this method is provided above.

The argument list for this method includes three fixed parameters, corresponding to the parameters automatically stacked by the VM for the bootstrap method in an invokedynamic invocation, and an Object[] parameter that contains additional parameters. The declared argument list for this method is:

CallSite altMetafactory(MethodHandles.Lookup caller,
                          String invokedName,
                          MethodType invokedType,
                          Object... args)

but it behaves as if the argument list is as follows:

CallSite altMetafactory(MethodHandles.Lookup caller,
                          String invokedName,
                          MethodType invokedType,
                          MethodType samMethodType,
                          MethodHandle implMethod,
                          MethodType instantiatedMethodType,
                          int flags,
                          int markerInterfaceCount,  // IF flags has MARKERS set
                          Class... markerInterfaces, // IF flags has MARKERS set
                          int bridgeCount,           // IF flags has BRIDGES set
                          MethodType... bridges      // IF flags has BRIDGES set
                          )

Arguments that appear in the argument list for metafactory(MethodHandles.Lookup, String, MethodType, MethodType, MethodHandle, MethodType) have the same specification as in that method. The additional arguments are interpreted as follows:

• flags indicates additional options; this is a bitwise OR of desired flags. Defined flags are FLAG_BRIDGES, FLAG_MARKERS, and FLAG_SERIALIZABLE.
• markerInterfaceCount is the number of additional interfaces the function object should implement, and is present if and only if the FLAG_MARKERS flag is set.
• markerInterfaces is a variable-length list of additional interfaces to implement, whose length equals markerInterfaceCount, and is present if and only if the FLAG_MARKERS flag is set.
• bridgeCount is the number of additional method signatures the function object should implement, and is present if and only if the FLAG_BRIDGES flag is set.
• bridges is a variable-length list of additional methods signatures to implement, whose length equals bridgeCount, and is present if and only if the FLAG_BRIDGES flag is set.

Each class named by markerInterfaces is subject to the same restrictions as Rd, the return type of invokedType, as described above. Each MethodType named by bridges is subject to the same restrictions as samMethodType, as described above.

When FLAG_SERIALIZABLE is set in flags, the function objects will implement Serializable, and will have a writeReplace method that returns an appropriate SerializedLambda. The caller class must have an appropriate $deserializeLambda$ method, as described in SerializedLambda.

When the target of the CallSite returned from this method is invoked, the resulting function objects are instances of a class with the following properties:

• The class implements the interface named by the return type of invokedType and any interfaces named by markerInterfaces
• The class declares methods with the name given by invokedName, and the signature given by samMethodType and additional signatures given by bridges
• The class may override methods from Object, and may implement methods related to serialization.