Tips For Golfing In Groovy

Question

As I have seen many questions asking tips for golfing in their interested language, I decided to ask for my favorite language: Groovy. People can give some tips and tricks that will be used in golfing with Groovy.

Answer 1

As Groovy is a somewhat verbose language, you could use Groovys MOP to shorten method calls.

The following snippet for example would pay off after the fourth usage:

''.metaClass.r<<{i->(int)Math.random()*i}
''.r(12)

Answer 2

I'm new to this whole golfing thing, this is what I got so far:

Use Closures not functions:

def a(b){print b}

is longer than

a={print it}

You can use a negative index in arrays and lists as an alias for size()-

c = "abc"
d = ["a", "b", "c"]

assert c[c.size()-1] == c[-1]
assert c[c.size()-2] == c[-2]
assert d[d.size()-1] == d[-1]
assert d.last() == d[-1]

The spread operator is a shortcut for collect:

assert d*.size() == d.collect{it.size()}

For sorting use the spaceship operator:

e = [54,5,12]
assert e.sort{a,b->a<=>b}==e.sort{a,b->a<b?-1:+1}
assert e.sort{a,b->a<=>b}==e.sort{a,b->if (a>b) {return(-1)} else {return(+1)}}

Edit Conversions:

assert "123" as int == "123".toInteger()