Groovy Cookbook

Groovy script: closure does not modify @Field annotated variable

Recently I have answered a few questions on Stack Overflow related to Groovy scripts and how they work in combination with closures and delegated objects. Some of use cases may not be intuitive and today I’m gonna show you one of them and explain what happens under the hood.

Let’s consider following Groovy script:

Listing 1. incrementing_number.groovy
import groovy.transform.Field

@Field int number = 15

println "Current number value is ${number}"

def body = {
    number++
    println "n: ${number}"
}

10.times body

println "Current number value is ${number}"

Running this script (Groovy 2.4.12) produces following output:

Current number value is 15
n: 16
n: 17
n: 18
n: 19
n: 20
n: 21
n: 22
n: 23
n: 24
n: 25
Current number value is 15

It may look counterintuitive and we could expect last line saying that the current number value is 25. So what’s going on?

Extending groovy.lang.Script

First thing we need to understand is that every Groovy script is compiled to a class that extends groovy.lang.Script. Assuming that the script I’ve shown above is named incrementing_number.groovy then the compiled Java class would look like this:

import groovy.lang.Binding;
import groovy.lang.Closure;
import groovy.lang.Script;
import org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.GStringImpl;
import org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.GeneratedClosure;
import org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.InvokerHelper;
import org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.ScriptBytecodeAdapter;
import org.codehaus.groovy.runtime.callsite.CallSite;

public class incrementing_number extends Script {
    Integer number;

    public incrementing_number() {
        CallSite[] var1 = $getCallSiteArray();
        byte var2 = 0;
        this.number = Integer.valueOf(var2);
    }

    public incrementing_number(Binding context) {
        CallSite[] var2 = $getCallSiteArray();
        super(context);
        byte var3 = 0;
        this.number = Integer.valueOf(var3);
    }

    public static void main(String... args) {
        CallSite[] var1 = $getCallSiteArray();
        var1[0].call(InvokerHelper.class, incrementing_number.class, args);
    }

    public Object run() {
        // implementation of a run() method here
    }
}

Second thing - in this example we used @Field annotation on purpose in line 3. According to class Javadoc documentation:

Variable annotation used for changing the scope of a variable within a script from being within the run method of the script to being at the class level for the script.

The annotated variable will become a private field of the script class. The type of the field will be the same as the type of the variable. Example usage:

import groovy.transform.Field
@Field List awe = [1, 2, 3]
def awesum() { awe.sum() }
assert awesum() == 6

In this example, without the annotation, variable awe would be a local script variable (technically speaking it will be a local variable within the run method of the script class). Such a local variable would not be visible inside the awesum method. With the annotation, awe becomes a private List field in the script class and is visible within the awesum method.

That’s why in compiled Java class we can find Integer number class field. The rest of the script body gets executed in Script.run() method.

Calling closure inside Groovy script

Now let’s investigate why closure body increments a number but does not modify the variable outside the closure. First thing we need to understand is that every closure has an owner - an enclosing object that defines a closure. In this case body.owner property points to incrementing_number class instance. Closure ownership is also connected to delegation - Groovy’s mechanism that allows us e.g. to delegate execution of non-existing methods to other object by setting obj.delegate property. Groovy also defines delegation strategy - an order in which delegation is resolved. The default strategy is Closure.OWNER_FIRST which is important to mention in our case.

Now we have to get back for a moment to groovy.lang.Script class. It overrides, inter alia, those two methods:

Listing 2. groovy/lang/Script.java#L54
public Object getProperty(String property) {
    try {
        return binding.getVariable(property);
    } catch (MissingPropertyException e) {
        return super.getProperty(property);
    }
}

public void setProperty(String property, Object newValue) {
    if ("binding".equals(property))
        setBinding((Binding) newValue);
    else if("metaClass".equals(property))
        setMetaClass((MetaClass)newValue);
    else
        binding.setVariable(property, newValue);
}

Groovy uses getProperty(String property) method any time we try to access class field and uses setProperty(String property, Object newValue) method any time we try to modify class field value. Our script class inherits this behavior. And because closure stored in body variable is owned by script class instance, reading or modifying any variable goes through those two methods.

groovy.lang.Script class also introduces a binding mechanism. As you can see both getProperty and setProperty methods use binding field to read and store variables. When trying to read a variable that does not exist in binding internal variables map then it is passed to GroovyObjectSupport.getProperty(String property) method which returns a value associated to number class field. And this is the value that is passed next to setProperty(String property, Object newValue) method and that’s how number variable shows up in binding object with its initial value. When we iterate 10 times and increment numbers we actually increment the value hold in binding’s map and not a class field. That’s why this Groovy script shown in the beginning says in the end that:

Current number value is 15

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