Java 7  is an upcoming major update to Java, releasing on July 28, its upgrade/add many features.


Upgraded Features
- Java 7 update the XML and Web Service stack to current stable build JAXP 1.4, JAXB 2.2 and JAX-WS 2.2.
- Update the Nimbus Look and Feel (Next Cross Platform UI). Its already added Java 6 Update 10. check here


- Translucent and shaped Windows
       This feature is also included in java 6 update 10.  this features provide to create transparent and any shape window in java. for more info check this



New features in java 7
Small languages changes (Project Coin Part 1)
Project Coin is one of the  project in java 7 for java language spec (JLS). Project Coin have 2 parts. the first part is add to java 7. and next part is comes with java 8 in next year (2012).
  •  Binary literals and underscore in numeric literals
                   now we can assign binary values directly.

the output of above code snippets is 32 and 1900000
  • Strings in switch statements

now we can use string literals in switch statements.
it prints "Java 7".


  •  Multi-catch statements and good re throw. Check Here
  •  try with resource stements. check here
  •  new diamond <> operator. check here

some other features of project coin will come with Java 8 in next year.

NIO 2 (New I/O 2)
        This one of the biggest update in java 7. It fill the gap between  underlaying OS and Java in terms of file manipulation. Oracle provide good tutorial about NIO 2 here

JLayer
     JLayer is a universal decorator for Swing components which enables you to implement various advanced painting effects as well as receive notifications of all AWTEvents generated within its borders. check this tutorial about how to decorate JLayer in existing swing component.

Support for dynamically-typed languages (InvokeDynamic)

       This feature is not for normal developers. Its only for those are porting his language into JVM. Check here for list of languages supported by JVM.

other features
  • Upgrade class-loader architecture
  • Support Uncode 6.0
  • Elliptic-curve cryptography (ECC)
  • JDBC 4.1
  • XRender Pipeline for mordern GPU

The Next Java 8 will give support for Modular JVM and modular programming (Project Jigsaw), Project Coin part 2, Project Lamda, collection literals and very importantly oracle going to merge JRockit into Hotspot VM.



comments are welcomed,