Java 24: Primitive Types in Patterns, instanceof, and switch

Java 24 introduces enhancements to pattern matching by allowing primitive types in all pattern contexts, and extending instanceof and switch to work with all primitive types. This is a preview language feature.

Previously, pattern matching for switch only supported reference types such as Integer i, but now it supports primitive types too. For example:

int i = 100;
String s = switch(i) {
  case 1 -> "one";
  case 2 -> "two";
  case int i when i > 2 -> "too big";
  default -> "unsupported";
}

Similarly, instanceof has been enhanced to support primitives, as shown in the example below:

int i = 1;
if (i instanceof byte b) {
  // i has been cast to byte and assigned to b
}

Related posts:
Java 19: Record Patterns
Java 17: Pattern Matching for Switch
Java 14: Pattern Matching for instanceof