groovy-common-extensions

Groovy Common Extensions is a library that enhances the Groovy programming language with a set of practical utility methods via Groovy's extension system. It provides developers with convenient, idiomatic additions to standard classes, streamlining everyday coding tasks and reducing boilerplate.

Key Features

• Implicit Conversions — Overload asType to define custom type conversions between classes.
• Clamp Values — Restrict Comparable values (numbers, strings, ranges) within specified bounds.
• Multi-criteria Sorting — Sort collections using multiple closure criteria in a single call.
• Safe List Operations — Use take with negative indices to safely retrieve elements from the end of a list.
• Resource Management — Automatically close resources with withClosable after closure execution.
• Method Chain Debugging — Insert tap into chains to inspect intermediate values without breaking the flow.
• File Compression — Zip and unzip files or directories directly from File objects.
• XML/JSON/Config Parsing — Convert strings to XML, JSON, or ConfigObject structures with toXml, toJson, and toConfig.
• Random Selection — Pick random elements from lists or iterators with configurable duplication and randomness.
• Statistical Averages — Compute mean, median, variance, and standard deviation for collections of numbers.

Philosophy

The project follows a pragmatic, utility-first approach, extending Groovy's expressive syntax with methods that feel native to the language, promoting cleaner and more concise code.