java - Explicit use of LambdaMetafactory

Question

I'm trying to explicitly use LambdaMetafactory.metafactory, I can't understand why it works only with the Runnable functional interface. For Example this code does what it is expected (it prints "hello world"):

public class MetafactoryTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Throwable {

        MethodHandles.Lookup caller = MethodHandles.lookup();
        MethodType methodType = MethodType.methodType(void.class);
        MethodType invokedType = MethodType.methodType(Runnable.class);
        CallSite site = LambdaMetafactory.metafactory(caller, 
                                                      "run", 
                                                      invokedType, 
                                                      methodType, 
                                                      caller.findStatic(MetafactoryTest.class, "print", methodType), 
                                                      methodType);
        MethodHandle factory = site.getTarget();
        Runnable r = (Runnable) factory.invoke();
        r.run();
    }

    private static void print() {
        System.out.println("hello world"); 
    }    
}

The problem arise when I try to use a different functional interface, such as Supplier. The following code does not work:

public class MetafactoryTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Throwable {

        MethodHandles.Lookup caller = MethodHandles.lookup();
        MethodType methodType = MethodType.methodType(String.class);
        MethodType invokedType = MethodType.methodType(Supplier.class);
        CallSite site = LambdaMetafactory.metafactory(caller, 
                                                      "get", 
                                                      invokedType, 
                                                      methodType, 
                                                      caller.findStatic(MetafactoryTest.class, "print", methodType), 
                                                      methodType);
        MethodHandle factory = site.getTarget();
        Supplier<String> r = (Supplier<String>) factory.invoke();
        System.out.println(r.get());        
    }
    private static String print() {
        return "hello world";
    }    
}


Exception in thread "main" java.lang.AbstractMethodError: metafactorytest.MetafactoryTest$$Lambda$1/258952499.get()Ljava/lang/Object;
    at metafactorytest.MetafactoryTest.main(MetafactoryTest.java:29)

Shouldn't the two snippet of code work in a similar way, which is the problem in the second snippet of code?

Moreover the following code, that should be equivalent, works well:

public class MetafactoryTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Throwable {
        Supplier<String> r = (Supplier<String>) () -> print();
        System.out.println(r.get());        
    }

    private static String print() {
        return "hello world";
    }    
}

Edit

Another solution that avoids to change the method return type is to define a new functional interface:

public class MetafactoryTest {

    @FunctionalInterface
    public interface Test {
        String getString();
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Throwable {

        MethodHandles.Lookup caller = MethodHandles.lookup();
        MethodType methodType = MethodType.methodType(String.class);
        MethodType invokedType = MethodType.methodType(Test.class);
        CallSite site = LambdaMetafactory.metafactory(caller, 
                                                      "getString", 
                                                      invokedType, 
                                                      methodType, 
                                                      caller.findStatic(MetafactoryTest.class, "print", methodType), 
                                                      methodType);
        MethodHandle factory = site.getTarget();
        Test r = (Test) factory.invoke();
        System.out.println(r.getString());        
    }

    private static String print() {
        return "hello world";
    }  

Answer 1

The difference between Runnable and Supplier is that Supplier uses a generic type.

At runtime Supplier doesn't have a String get() method, it has Object get(). But the method you implement returns a String. You need to distinguish between those 2 types. Like this:

public class MetafactoryTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Throwable {

        MethodHandles.Lookup caller = MethodHandles.lookup();
        MethodType methodType = MethodType.methodType(Object.class);
        MethodType actualMethodType = MethodType.methodType(String.class);
        MethodType invokedType = MethodType.methodType(Supplier.class);
        CallSite site = LambdaMetafactory.metafactory(caller, 
                                                      "get", 
                                                      invokedType, 
                                                      methodType, 
                                                      caller.findStatic(MetafactoryTest.class, "print", actualMethodType), 
                                                      methodType);
        MethodHandle factory = site.getTarget();
        Supplier<String> r = (Supplier<String>) factory.invoke();
        System.out.println(r.get());
    }

    private static String print() {
        return "hello world";
    }    
}