What is the main purpose of using the Callable interface in programming?

The Callable interface in Java is used to define tasks that can be executed in a separate thread and return a result. Unlike Runnable, which does not return a value and cannot throw checked exceptions, Callable:

• Returns a result via the call() method.
• Can throw exceptions.

This allows using Callable with ExecutorService for asynchronous task execution and obtaining the result through Future.

Example:

Callable<Integer> task = () -> {
    // Some computational task
    return 123;
};
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
Future<Integer> future = executor.submit(task);
Integer result = future.get(); // Get the result
executor.shutdown();