Java 8 features – Stream API advanced examples

Last Updated on by

Post summary: This post explains Java 8 Stream API with very basic code examples.

In Java 8 features – Lambda expressions, Interface changes, Stream API, DateTime API post I have briefly described most interesting Java 8 features. In the current post, I will give special attention to Stream API. This post is with more advanced code examples to elaborate on basic examples described in Java 8 features – Stream API basic examples post. Code examples here can be found in GitHub java-samples/java8 repository.

Memory consumption and better design

Stream API has operations that are short-circuiting, such as limit(). Once their goal is achieved they stop processing the stream. Most of the operators are not such. Here I have prepared an example for possible pitfall when using not short-circuiting operators. For testing purposes, I have created PeekObject which outputs a message to the console once its constructor is called.

public class PeekObject {
	private String message;

	public PeekObject(String message) {
		this.message = message;
		System.out.println("Constructor called for: " + message);
	}

	public String getMessage() {
		return message;
	}
}

Assume a situation where there is a stream of many instances of PeekObject, but only several elements of the stream are needed, thus they have to be limited. Only 2 constructors are called in this case.

limit the stream

public static List<PeekObject> limit_shortCircuiting(List<String> stringList,
							int limit) {
	return stringList.stream()
		.map(PeekObject::new)
		.limit(limit)
		.collect(Collectors.toList());
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_limit_shortCircuiting() {
	System.out.println("limit_shortCircuiting");

	List<String> stringList = Arrays.asList("a", "b", "a", "c", "d", "a");

	List<PeekObject> result = AdvancedStreamExamples
		.limit_shortCircuiting(stringList, 2);

	assertThat(result.size(), is(2));
}

console output

limit_shortCircuiting
Constructor called for: a
Constructor called for: b

Now stream has to be sorted before the limit is applied.

code

public static List<PeekObject> sorted_notShortCircuiting(
					List<String> stringList, int limit) {
	return stringList.stream()
		.map(PeekObject::new)
		.sorted((left, right) -> 
			left.getMessage().compareTo(right.getMessage()))
		.limit(limit)
		.collect(Collectors.toList());
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_sorted_notShortCircuiting() {
	System.out.println("sorted_notShortCircuiting");

	List<String> stringList = Arrays.asList("a", "b", "a", "c", "d", "a");

	List<PeekObject> result = AdvancedStreamExamples
		.sorted_notShortCircuiting(stringList, 2);

	assertThat(result.size(), is(2));
}

console output

sorted_notShortCircuiting
Constructor called for: a
Constructor called for: b
Constructor called for: a
Constructor called for: c
Constructor called for: d
Constructor called for: a

Notice that constructors for all objects in the stream are called. This will require Java to allocate enough memory for all the objects. There are 6 objects in this example, but what if there are 6 million. Also, current objects are very lightweight, but what if they are much bigger. The conclusion is that you have to know very well Stream API operations and apply them carefully when designing your stream pipeline.

Convert comma separated List to a Map with handling duplicates

There is a List of comma separated values which need to be converted to a Map. List value “11,21” should become Map entry with key 11 and value 21. Duplicated keys also should be considered: Arrays.asList(“11,21”, “12,21”, “13,23”, “13,24”).

code

public static Map<Long, Long> splitToMap(List<String> stringsList) {
	return stringsList.stream()
		.filter(StringUtils::isNotEmpty)
		.map(line -> line.split(","))
		.filter(array -> array.length == 2 
			&& NumberUtils.isNumber(array[0])
			&& NumberUtils.isNumber(array[1]))
		.collect(Collectors.toMap(array -> Long.valueOf(array[0]), 
			array -> Long.valueOf(array[1]), (first, second) -> first)));
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_splitToMap() {
	List<String> stringList = Arrays
			.asList("11,21", "12,21", "13,23", "13,24");

	Map<Long, Long> result = AdvancedStreamExamples.splitToMap(stringList);

	assertThat(result.size(), is(3));
	assertThat(result.get(11L), is(21L));
	assertThat(result.get(12L), is(21L));
	assertThat(result.get(13L), is(23L));
}

The important bit in this conversion is (first, second) -> first), if it is not present there will be error java.lang.IllegalStateException: Duplicate key 23 (slightly misleading error, as the duplicated key is 13, the value is 23). This is a merge function which resolves collisions between values associated with the same key. It evaluates two values found for the same key – first and second where current lambda returns the first. If overwrite is needed, hence keep the last entered value then lambda would be: (first, second) -> second).

Examples of custom object

Examples to follow use custom object Employee, where Position is an enumeration: public enum Position { DEV, DEV_OPS, QA }.

import java.util.List;

public class Employee {
	private String firstName;
	private String lastName;
	private Position position;
	private List<String> skills;
	private int salary;

	public Employee() {
	}

	public Employee(String firstName, String lastName,
				Position position, int salary) {
		this.firstName = firstName;
		this.lastName = lastName;
		this.position = position;
		this.salary = salary;
	}

	public void setSkills(String... skills) {
		this.skills = Arrays.stream(skills).collect(Collectors.toList());
	}

	public String getName() {
		return this.firstName + " " + this.lastName;
	}

	... Getters and Setters
}

A company has been created, it consists of 6 developers, 2 QAs and 2 DevOps..

private List<Employee> createCompany() {
	Employee dev1 = new Employee("John", "Doe", Position.DEV, 110);
	dev1.setSkills("C#", "ASP.NET", "React", "AngularJS");
	Employee dev2 = new Employee("Peter", "Doe", Position.DEV, 120);
	dev2.setSkills("Java", "MongoDB", "Dropwizard", "Chef");
	Employee dev3 = new Employee("John", "Smith", Position.DEV, 115);
	dev3.setSkills("Java", "JSP", "GlassFish", "MySql");
	Employee dev4 = new Employee("Brad", "Johston", Position.DEV, 100);
	dev4.setSkills("C#", "MSSQL", "Entity Framework");
	Employee dev5 = new Employee("Philip", "Branson", Position.DEV, 140);
	dev5.setSkills("JavaScript", "React", "AngularJS", "NodeJS");
	Employee dev6 = new Employee("Nathaniel", "Barth", Position.DEV, 99);
	dev6.setSkills("Java", "Dropwizard");
	Employee qa1 = new Employee("Ronald", "Wynn", Position.QA, 100);
	qa1.setSkills("Selenium", "C#", "Java");
	Employee qa2 = new Employee("Erich", "Kohn", Position.QA, 105);
	qa2.setSkills("Selenium", "JavaScript", "Protractor");
	Employee devOps1 = new Employee("Harold", "Jess", Position.DEV_OPS, 116);
	devOps1.setSkills("CentOS", "bash", "c", "puppet", "chef", "Ansible");
	Employee devOps2 = new Employee("Karl", "Madsen", Position.DEV_OPS, 123);
	devOps2.setSkills("Ubuntu", "bash", "Python", "chef");

	return Arrays.asList(dev1, dev2, dev3, dev4, dev5, dev6,
				qa1, qa2, devOps1, devOps2);
}

Company skill set

This method accepts none, one or many positions. If no positions are provided then information for all positions is printed. Positions array is transferred to List<String> because all objects used in lambda should be effectively final. Transferring array to stream is done with Arrays.stream() method. Employees are filtered based on the desired position. Each skills list is concatenated and flattened to a stream with flatMap(). After this operation, there is a stream of strings with all skills. Duplicates are removed with distinct(). Finally, stream is collected to a list.

code

public static List<String> gatherEmployeeSkills(
		List<Employee> employees, Position... positions) {
	positions = positions == null || positions.length == 0 
		? Position.values() : positions;
	List<Position> searchPositions = Arrays.stream(positions)
			.collect(Collectors.toList());
	return employees == null ? Collections.emptyList()
		: employees.stream()
			.filter(employee 
				-> searchPositions.contains(employee.getPosition()))
			.flatMap(employee -> employee.getSkills().stream())
			.distinct()
			.collect(Collectors.toList());
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_gatherEmployeeSkills() {
	List<Employee> company = createCompany();

	List<String> skills = AdvancedStreamExamples
			.gatherEmployeeSkills(company);

	assertThat(skills.size(), is(25));
}

Skillset per position

This method first received a list of all skills per position and converts it to a stream. The stream can be collected to a String with Collectors.joining() method. It accepts delimiter, prefix, and suffix.

code

public static String printEmployeeSkills(
		List<Employee> employees, Position position) {
	List<String> skills = gatherEmployeeSkills(employees, position);
	return skills.stream()
		.collect(Collectors.joining("; ",
			"Our " + position + "s have: ", " skills"));
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_printEmployeeSkills() {
	List<Employee> company = createCompany();

	String skills = AdvancedStreamExamples
			.printEmployeeSkills(company, Position.QA);

	assertThat(skills, is("Our employees have: "
		+ "Selenium; C#; Java; JavaScript; Protractor skills"));
}

Salary statistics

This method returns Map with Position as key and IntSummaryStatistics as value. Collectors.groupingBy() groups employees by position key and then using Collectors.summarizingInt() to get statistics of employee’s salary.

code

public static Map<Position, IntSummaryStatistics> salaryStatistics(
		List<Employee> employees) {
	return employees.stream()
		.collect(Collectors.groupingBy(Employee::getPosition,
			Collectors.summarizingInt(Employee::getSalary)));
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_salaryStatistics() {
	List<Employee> company = createCompany();

	Map<Position, IntSummaryStatistics> salaries = AdvancedStreamExamples
			.salaryStatistics(company);

	assertThat(salaries.get(Position.DEV).getAverage(), is(114D));
	assertThat(salaries.get(Position.QA).getAverage(), is(102.5D));
	assertThat(salaries.get(Position.DEV_OPS).getAverage(), is(119.5D));
}

Position with the lowest average salary

Map with position and salary summary is retrieved and then with entrySet().stream() map is converted to stream of Entry<Position, IntSummaryStatistics> objects. Entries are sorted by average value in ascending order by custom comparator Double.compare(). findFirst() returns Optional<Entry>. The entry itself is obtained with get() method. The key which is basically the position is obtained with getKey() method.

code

public static Position positionWithLowestAverageSalary(
		List<Employee> employees) {
	return salaryStatistics(employees)
		.entrySet().stream()
		.sorted((entry1, entry2) 
			-> Double.compare(entry1.getValue().getAverage(),
				entry2.getValue().getAverage()))
		.findFirst()
		.get()
		.getKey();
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_positionWithLowestAverageSalary() {
	List<Employee> company = createCompany();

	Position position = AdvancedStreamExamples
			.positionWithLowestAverageSalary(company);

	assertThat(position, is(Position.QA));
}

Employees per each position

Grouping is done per position and employees are aggregated to list with Collectors.toList() method.

code

public static Map<Position, List<Employee>> employeesPerPosition(
		List<Employee> employees) {
	return employees.stream()
		.collect(Collectors.groupingBy(Employee::getPosition,
				Collectors.toList()));
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_employeesPerPosition() {
	List<Employee> company = createCompany();

	Map<Position, List<Employee>> employees = AdvancedStreamExamples
			.employeesPerPosition(company);

	assertThat(employees.get(Position.QA).size(), is(2));
	assertThat(employees.get(Position.QA).get(0).getName(),
		is("Ronald Wynn"));
	assertThat(employees.get(Position.QA).get(1).getName(),
		is("Erich Kohn"));
}

Employee names per each position

Similar to the method above, but one more mapping is needed here. Employee name should be extracted and converted to List<String>. This is done with Collectors.mapping(Employee::getName, Collectors.toList()) method.

code

public static Map<Position, List<String>> employeeNamesPerPosition(
		List<Employee> employees) {
	return employees.stream()
		.collect(Collectors.groupingBy(Employee::getPosition,
			Collectors.mapping(Employee::getName,
						Collectors.toList())));
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_employeeNamesPerPosition() {
	List<Employee> company = createCompany();

	Map<Position, List<String>> employees = AdvancedStreamExamples
			.employeeNamesPerPosition(company);

	assertThat(employees.get(Position.QA).size(), is(2));
	assertThat(employees.get(Position.QA).get(0), is("Ronald Wynn"));
	assertThat(employees.get(Position.QA).get(1), is("Erich Kohn"));
}

Employee count per position

Getting the count is done by Collectors.counting() method. It returns Long by default. If Integer is needed then this can be changed to Collectors.reducing(0, e -> 1, Integer::sum).

code

public static Map<Position, Long> employeesCountPerPosition(
			List<Employee> employees) {
	return employees.stream()
		.collect(Collectors.groupingBy(Employee::getPosition,
						Collectors.counting()));
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_employeesCountPerPosition() {
	List<Employee> company = createCompany();

	Map<Position, Long> employees = AdvancedStreamExamples
				.employeesCountPerPosition(company);

	assertThat(employees.get(Position.DEV), is(6L));
	assertThat(employees.get(Position.QA), is(2L));
	assertThat(employees.get(Position.DEV_OPS), is(2L));
}

Employees with duplicated first name

Employees are grouped into a map with key first name and List<Employee> as value. This map is converted to stream and filtered for List<Employee> greater than 1 element. The list is flattened with flatMap() and collected to List<Employee>.

code

public static List<Employee> employeesWithDuplicateFirstName(
		List<Employee> employees) {
	return employees.stream()
		.collect(Collectors.groupingBy(Employee::getFirstName,
						Collectors.toList()))
		.entrySet().stream()
		.filter(entry -> entry.getValue().size() > 1)
		.flatMap(entry -> entry.getValue().stream())
		.collect(Collectors.toList());
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_employeesWithDuplicateFirstName() {
	List<Employee> company = createCompany();

	List<Employee> employees = AdvancedStreamExamples
			.employeesWithDuplicateFirstName(company);

	assertThat(employees.size(), is(2));
	assertThat(employees.get(0).getName(), is("John Doe"));
	assertThat(employees.get(1).getName(), is("John Smith"));
}

Conclusion

In this post, I have just scratched the Java 8 Stream API. It offers a vast amount of functionalities which can be very useful for data processing. Beware when generating stream pipeline because it might end up consuming too many resources.

Related Posts

Read more...

Java 8 features – Stream API basic examples

Last Updated on by

Post summary: This post explains Java 8 Stream API with very basic code examples.

In Java 8 features – Lambda expressions, Interface changes, Stream API, DateTime API post I have briefly described most interesting Java 8 features. In the current post, I will give special attention to Stream API. This post is with very basic code examples to explain the theory described in Java 8 features – Stream API explained post. Code examples here can be found in GitHub java-samples/java8 repository.

Example for filter, map, distinct, sorted, peek and collect

I will cover all those operations in one example. Code below takes a list of strings and converts it to stream by stream() method. For debug purposes peek() is used in the beginning and at the end of stream operations. It only prints to the console elements from the stream. Filtering of the elements is done by filter() method. Lambda expression is used as a predicate. This lambda expression is a method call to verify current element is a number: element-> NumberUtils.isNumber(element). Since it is a single method call it is substituted with method reference: NumberUtils::isNumber. All elements that are evaluated to false are removed from further processing. It is good practice to use filtering at the beginning of stream pipeline so stream elements are reduced. Next operation is converting String values in the stream to Long values. This is done with map() method again with method reference. Duplicated elements are removed by calling distinct(). Stream elements are sorted by element’s natural order, in the current example, they are Long values. In the end, the stream is materialized into a List by using collect(Collectors.toList()) method. If this code has to be written without streams it would have looked as shown in “no stream code” tab. Note that using stream code is much more readable. Actually, in the beginning, it is not that easy to think in a stream-oriented way, but once you get used to it, you will never want to see the non-streams code.

code

public static List<Long> toLongList(List<String> stringList) {
	return stringList.stream()
		.peek(element -> System.out.println("Before: " + element))
		.filter(NumberUtils::isNumber)
		.map(Long::valueOf)
		.distinct()
		.sorted()
		.peek(element -> System.out.println("After: " + element))
		.collect(Collectors.toList());
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_toLongList() {
	List<String> stringList = Arrays
		.asList(null, "", "aaa", "345", "123", "234", "123");

	List<Long> result = BasicStreamExamples.toLongList(stringList);

	assertEquals(3, result.size());
	assertEquals(123L, (long) result.get(0));
	assertEquals(234L, (long) result.get(1));
	assertEquals(345L, (long) result.get(2));
}

console output

Before: null
Before: 
Before: aaa
Before: 345
Before: 123
Before: 234
Before: 123
After: 123
After: 234
After: 345

no stream code

public static List<Long> toLongListWithoutStream(List<String> stringList) {
	List<Long> result = new ArrayList<>();
	for (String value : stringList) {
		System.out.println("Before: " + value);
		if (NumberUtils.isNumber(value)) {
			Long longValue = Long.valueOf(value);
			if (!result.contains(longValue)) {
				result.add(longValue);
				System.out.println("After: " + value);
			}
		}
	}
	Collections.sort(result);
	return result;
}

Example for toArray

This example is similar to the example above, instead of collecting as a list here stream elements are returned in the array.

toArray code

public static Long[] toLongArray(String[] stringArray) {
	return Arrays.stream(stringArray)
		.filter(NumberUtils::isNumber)
		.map(Long::valueOf)
		.toArray(Long[]::new);
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_toLongArray() {
	String[] stringArray = new String[] {null, "", "aaa", "123", "234"};

	Long[] result = BasicStreamExamples.toLongArray(stringArray);

	assertEquals(2, result.length);
	assertEquals(123L, (long) result[0]);
	assertEquals(234L, (long) result[1]);
}

Example for flatMap

This function is pretty complex and hard to understand. In the current example, there is a map with String for key and List for value. The example below merges all list values in one result list. Note that Map interface does not have stream() method. Instead, first entrySet() is invoked which returns Set and then invoke its stream() method. Once stream is created flatMap() is called and result of Function argument should be stream: map -> map.getValue().stream(). This resultant stream is a merge of all list values streams, which is then collected to a List.

flatMap code

public static List<String> flapMap(Map<String, List<String>> mapToProcess) {
	return mapToProcess.entrySet()
		.stream()
		.flatMap(map -> map.getValue().stream())
		.collect(Collectors.toList());
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_flapMap() {
	Map<String, List<String>> map = new HashMap<>();
	map.put("1", Arrays.asList("a", "b"));
	map.put("2", Arrays.asList("C", "D"));

	List<String> expectedResult = Arrays.asList("a", "b", "C", "D");

	List<String> result = BasicStreamExamples.flapMap(map);

	assertEquals(expectedResult, result);
}

Examples of limit and skip

limit code

public static List<String> limitValues(List<String> stringList, long limit) {
	return stringList.stream()
		.limit(limit)
		.collect(Collectors.toList());
}

limit unit test

@Test
public void test_limitValues() {
	List<String> stringList = Arrays.asList("a", "b", "c", "d");

	List<String> result = BasicStreamExamples.limitValues(stringList, 2);

	assertEquals(2, result.size());
	assertEquals("a", result.get(0));
	assertEquals("b", result.get(1));
}

skip code

public static List<String> skipValues(List<String> stringList, long skip) {
	return stringList.stream()
		.skip(skip)
		.collect(Collectors.toList());
}

skip unit test

@Test
public void test_skipValues() {
	List<String> stringList = Arrays.asList("a", "b", "c", "d");

	List<String> result = BasicStreamExamples.skipValues(stringList, 2);

	assertEquals(2, result.size());
	assertEquals("c", result.get(0));
	assertEquals("d", result.get(1));
}

Example for forEach

forEach code

public static void printEachElement(List<String> stringList) {
	stringList.stream()
		.forEach(element -> System.out.println("Element: " + element));
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_printEachElement() {
	List<String> stringList = Arrays.asList("a", "b", "c", "d");

	BasicStreamExamples.printEachElement(stringList);
}

console output

Element: a
Element: b
Element: c
Element: d

Examples of min and max

min code

public static Optional<Integer> getMin(List<Integer> stringList) {
	return stringList.stream()
		.min(Long::compare);
}

min unit test

@Test
public void test_getMin() {
	List<Integer> integerList = Arrays.asList(234, 123, 345);

	Optional<Integer> result = BasicStreamExamples.getMin(integerList);

	assertEquals(123, (int) result.get());
}

max code

public static Optional<Integer> getMax(List<Integer> integers) {
	return integers.stream()
		.max(Long::compare);
}

max unit test

@Test
public void test_getMax() {
	List<Integer> integerList = Arrays.asList(234, 123, 345);

	Optional<Integer> result = BasicStreamExamples.getMax(integerList);

	assertEquals(345, (int) result.get());
}

Example for reduce

This also is a bit complex method. The method that is given below sums all elements in the provided stream.

reduce code

public static Optional<Integer> sumByReduce(List<Integer> integers) {
	return integers.stream()
		.reduce((x, y) -> x + y);
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_sumByReduce() {
	List<Integer> integerList = Arrays.asList(100, 200, 300);

	Optional<Integer> result = BasicStreamExamples.sumByReduce(integerList);

	assertEquals(600, (int) result.get());
}

Example for count

count code

public static long count(List<Integer> integers) {
	return integers.stream()
		.count();
}

unit test

@Test
public void test_count() {
	List<Integer> integerList = Arrays.asList(234, 123, 345);

	long result = BasicStreamExamples.count(integerList);

	assertEquals(3, result);
}

Example for anyMatch, allMatch, and noneMatch

anyMatch code

public static boolean isOddElementPresent(List<Integer> integers) {
	return integers.stream()
		.anyMatch(element -> element % 2 != 0);
}

allMatch code

public static boolean areAllElementsOdd(List<Integer> integers) {
	return integers.stream()
		.allMatch(element -> element % 2 != 0);
}

noneMatch code

public static boolean areAllElementsEven(List<Integer> integers) {
	return integers.stream()
		.noneMatch(element -> element % 2 != 0);
}

unit test 1

@Test
public void test_anyMatch_allMatch_noneMatch_allEven() {
	List<Integer> integerList = Arrays.asList(234, 124, 346, 124);

	assertFalse(BasicStreamExamples.isOddElementPresent(integerList));
	assertFalse(BasicStreamExamples.areAllElementsOdd(integerList));
	assertTrue(BasicStreamExamples.areAllElementsEven(integerList));
}

unit test 2

@Test
public void test_anyMatch_allMatch_noneMatch_evenAndOdd() {
	List<Integer> integerList = Arrays.asList(234, 123, 345, 123);

	assertTrue(BasicStreamExamples.isOddElementPresent(integerList));
	assertFalse(BasicStreamExamples.areAllElementsOdd(integerList));
	assertFalse(BasicStreamExamples.areAllElementsEven(integerList));
}

unit test 3

@Test
public void test_anyMatch_allMatch_noneMatch_allOdd() {
	List<Integer> integerList = Arrays.asList(233, 123, 345, 123);

	assertTrue(BasicStreamExamples.isOddElementPresent(integerList));
	assertTrue(BasicStreamExamples.areAllElementsOdd(integerList));
	assertFalse(BasicStreamExamples.areAllElementsEven(integerList));
}

Examples for findFirst

In case of List stream has an order and it will return always 234 as result.

findFirst code for List

public static Optional<Integer> getFirstElementList(List<Integer> integers) {
	return integers.stream()
		.findFirst();
}

findFirst unit test for List

@Test
public void test_getFirstElementList() {
	List<Integer> integerList = Arrays.asList(234, 123, 345, 123);

	Optional<Integer> result = BasicStreamExamples
		.getFirstElementList(integerList);

	assertEquals(Integer.valueOf(234), result.get());
}

Since Set has no natural order then there is no guarantee which element is to be returned by findFirst(). On my machine, with my JVM it is 345, but on another machine, with other JVM it might be a different value, so this test most likely will fail for someone else.

findFirst code for Set

public static Optional<Integer> getFirstElementSet(Set<Integer> integers) {
	return integers.stream()
		.findFirst();
}

findFirst unit test for Set

@Test
public void test_getFirstElementSet() {
	Set<Integer> integerSet = new HashSet<>();
	integerSet.add(234);
	integerSet.add(123);
	integerSet.add(345);
	integerSet.add(123);

	Optional<Integer> result = BasicStreamExamples
		.getFirstElementSet(integerSet);

	assertEquals(Integer.valueOf(345), result.get());
}

Examples for findAny

There is no guarantee which element is to be returned by findAny(). On my machine, with my JVM it is 234, but on another machine, with other JVM it might be a different value, so this test most likely will fail for someone else.

findAny code

public static Optional<Integer> getAnyElement(List<Integer> integers) {
	return integers.stream()
		.findAny();
}

findAny unit test

@Test
public void test_getGetAnyElement() {
	List<Integer> integerList = Arrays.asList(234, 123, 345, 123);

	Optional<Integer> result = BasicStreamExamples
		.getAnyElement(integerList);

	assertEquals(Integer.valueOf(234), result.get());
}

Conclusion

These basic code examples give an idea how Java 8 Stream API operations work. More advanced examples are shown in Java 8 features – Stream API advanced examples post.

Related Posts

Read more...

Java 8 features – Stream API explained

Last Updated on by

Post summary: Code examples of Java 8 Stream API showing useful use cases.

In Java 8 features – Lambda expressions, Interface changes, Stream API, DateTime API post I have briefly described most interesting Java 8 features. In the current post, I will give special attention to Stream API. This post is more theoretical which lays the foundation for next posts: Java 8 features – Stream API basic examples and Java 8 features – Stream API advanced examples that gives code examples to explain the theory. Code examples here can be found in GitHub java-samples/java8 repository.

Functional interfaces

Before explaining Stream API it is needed to understand the idea of a functional interface as they are leveraged for use with lambda expressions. A functional interface is an interface that has only one abstract method that is to be implemented. A functional interface may or may not have default or static methods. Although not mandatory, a good practice is to annotate a functional interface with @FunctionalInterface. Functional interfaces mostly used in Stream API operations are explained below. You can also use functional interfaces in a method signature, hence lambda expressions can be passed when calling a method. If one’s below are not suitable you can always create own functional interface.

Predicate

Method for implementation is: boolean test(T t). This interface is used in order to evaluate condition to an input object to a boolean expression.

Supplier

Method for implementation is: T get(). This interface is used in order to get output object as a result.

Function

Method for implementation is: R apply(T t). This interface is used in order to produce a result object based on a given input object.

Consumer

Method for implementation is: void accept(T t). This interface is used in order to do an operation on a single input object that does not produce any result.

BiConsumer

Method for implementation is: void accept(T t, U u). This interface is used in order to do an operation on two input objects that do not produce any result.

Method reference

Sometimes when using lambda expression all that is done is calling a single method by name. Method reference provides an easy way to call the method making the code more readable. In short it is calling NumberUtils::isNumber instead of element-> NumberUtils.isNumber(element).

Stream API

Stream API is used for data processing which supports parallel operations. It enables data processing in a declarative way. Streams are sequences of elements that support different operations. Streams are lazily computed on demand when elements are needed. The stream is like a recipe that gets executed when actual result is needed.

Stream operations

Stream operations are divided into intermediate and terminal operations combined to form stream pipelines. Intermediate operations return a new stream. They are always lazy. Executing an intermediate operation such as filter() does not actually perform any filtering, but instead creates a new stream. Terminal operations on the other hand, such as collect() generates a result or final value. After the terminal operation is performed, the stream pipeline is considered consumed, and can no longer be used. Intermediate and terminal operators, such as limit() or findFirst() can be short-circuiting, once they achieve their goal they stop further stream processing. Intermediate operations are further divided into stateless and stateful operations. Stateless operations, such as filter() and map(), retain no state from the previously seen element when processing a new element, hence each element can be processed independently of operations on other elements. Stateful operations, such as distinct() and sorted(), may incorporate state from previously seen elements when processing new elements. For example, one cannot produce any results from sorting a stream until one has seen all elements of the stream. As a result, under parallel computation, some pipelines containing stateful intermediate operations may require multiple passes on the data or may need to buffer significant data. Stateful operations should be carefully considered when constructing stream pipeline because they might require significant resources.

Stream API methods

Below is a list of most of the methods available in Stream interface with a short description. Code examples with explanations are in the following post.

filter

Stream filter(Predicate<? super T> predicate) – a stateless intermediate operation that returns a stream consisting of the elements of this stream matching the given predicate.

map

Stream map(Function<? super T, ? extends R> mapper) – a stateless intermediate operation that converts a value of one type into another by applying a function that does the conversion. Result is one output value for one input value.

distinct

Stream distinct() – stateful intermediate operation that removes duplicated elements using equals() method.

sorted

Stream sorted() or Stream sorted(Comparator<? super T> comparator) – stateful intermediate operation that sorts stream elements according to given or default comparator.

peek

Stream peek(Consumer<? super T> action) – a stateless intermediate operation that performs an action on an element once the stream is consumed. It does not change the stream or alter stream elements. It is mainly used for debugging purposes.

collect

<R, A> R collect(Collector<? super T, A, R> collector) or R collect(Supplier supplier, BiConsumer<R, ? super T> accumulator, BiConsumer<R, R> combiner) – terminal operation that performs mutable reduction operation on the stream elements reducing the stream to a mutable result collector, such as an ArrayList. Stream elements are incorporated into the result by updating it instead of replacing.

toArray

Object[] toArray() – terminal operation that returns array containing elements of this stream.

flatMap

<R> Stream<R> flatMap(Function<? super T, ? extends Stream<? extends R>> mapper) – stateless intermediate operation that replaces value with a stream. A result is an arbitrary number of output values to a single input value.

limit

Stream<T> limit(long maxSize) – a short-circuiting stateful intermediate operation that truncates a stream to a given length.

skip

Stream<T> skip(long n) – a stateful intermediate operation that skips first elements from a stream.

forEach

void forEach(Consumer<? super T> action) – a terminal operation that performs an action for each element in the stream

reduce

T reduce(T identity, BinaryOperator<T> accumulator) or Optional<T> reduce(BinaryOperator<T> accumulator) or <U> U reduce(U identity, BiFunction<U, ? super T, U> accumulator, BinaryOperator<U> combiner) – terminal operation that performs reduction on the elements in the stream.

min

Optional<T> min(Comparator<? super T> comparator) – terminal operation that returns min element in stream based on given comparator. Special case of reduce operator.

max

Optional<T> max(Comparator<? super T> comparator) – terminal operation that returns max element in stream based on given comparator. Special case of reduce operator.

count

long count() – a terminal operation that counts elements in a stream.

anyMatch

boolean anyMatch(Predicate<? super T> predicate) – a short-circuiting terminal operation that returns a boolean result if an element in stream conforms to given predicate. Once the result is true operation is cancelled and the result is returned.

allMatch

boolean allMatch(Predicate<? super T> predicate) – a short-circuiting terminal operation that returns a boolean result if all elements in stream conforms to given predicate. Once the result is false operation is cancelled and the result is returned.

noneMatch

boolean noneMatch(Predicate<? super T> predicate) – a short-circuiting terminal operation that returns a boolean result if none elements in stream conform to given predicate. Once the result is false operation is cancelled and the result is returned.

findFirst

Optional<T> findFirst() – a short-circuiting terminal operation that returns an Optional with the first element of this stream or an empty Optional if the stream is empty. If the stream has no order, such as Map or Set, then any element may be returned.

findAny

Optional<T> findAny()  – a short-circuiting terminal operation that returns an Optional with some element of the stream or an empty Optional if the stream is empty.

Conclusion

Stream API is very powerful instrument provided in Java 8. They allow data processing in a declarative way and in parallel. Code looks very neat and easy to read.

Related Posts

Read more...

Java 8 features – Lambda expressions, Interface changes, Stream API, DateTime API

Last Updated on by

Post summary: Short overview of the most interesting and useful Java 8 features.

More details and code examples are available for Stream API in a post to follow.

Java 8

Java 8 is released March 2014, more than three years ago, so we should have already been familiar with its features, which are really nice and can significantly improve our code. Below are some of them I find most interesting and important.

Lambda expressions

In math, Lambda calculus is a way for expressing computation based on function abstraction and was first introduced in the 1930s. This is where the name of Lambda expressions in Java comes from. Functional interface is another concept that is closely related to lambda expressions. A functional interface is an interface with just one method that is to be implemented. Lambda expression is an inline code that implements this interface without creating a concrete or anonymous class. Lambda expression is basically an anonymous method. With lambda expression code is treated as data and lambda expression can be passed as an argument to another method allowing code itself to be invoked at a later stage. Sometimes when using lambda expression all you do is call a single method by name. Method reference is a shortcut for calling a method making the code more readable. Lambdas, functional interfaces, and method reference are very much used with Stream API and will be covered in detail in Java 8 features – Stream API explained post.

Method implementation in an Interface

With this feature interfaces are not what they used to be. It is now possible to have method implementation inside an interface. There are two types of methods – default and static. Default methods have implementation and all classes implementing this interface inherit this implementation. It is possible to override the existing default method. Static methods also have an implementation, but cannot be overridden. Static methods are accessible from interfaces only (InterfaceName.methodName()), they are not accessible from classes implementing those interfaces. Having said that it seems now that interface with static methods is a good candidate for utility class, instead of having a final class with private constructor as it is usually done. I will not give code examples for this feature, there are lots of resources online.

Stream API

This might be the most significant feature in Java 8 release. It is related to lambda expressions as Stream methods have functional interfaces in their signature, so it is nice and easy to pass lambda expression. Stream API was introduced because default methods in interfaces were allowed. Interface java.util.Collection was extended with stream() method and if default methods were not allowed this would have meant a lot of custom implementations broken, essentially an incompatible change. Stream API provides methods for building pipelines for data processing. Unlike collections streams are not physical objects, they are abstractions and become physical when they are needed. The huge benefits of streams are that they are designed to facilitate multi-core architectures without developers to worry about it. Everything happens behind the scenes. Stream API is explained in more details in the following posts:

Date and Time API

Prior to Java 8 date-time classes were not thread-safe and calculations and date-time manipulations were very hard. Also, time zones management was hard. In Java 8 date-time classes are now immutable which makes then thread-safe. In most of the projects, I’ve seen prior to Java 8 instead of using default Java time classes Joda-Time library was used. It is an amazing library providing so many features to manipulate date and time. In Java 8 date and time classes follow principles from Joda-Time which makes Java 8 Date and Time API very efficient. Actually, the Joda-Time designer was the Java specification lead for JSR 310. In Java 8 there are local and zoned date-time classes. I’m not going to get into details here, there are many tutorials online for Java 8 Date and Time API usage. I just say – start using it! It is located in java.time.* package.

Conclusion

Java 8 has really great features. I anticipate you are already using it, if not – start right now!

Related Posts

Read more...

Manage and automatically select needed WebDriver in Java 8 Selenium project

Last Updated on by

Post summary: Example code how to efficiently manage and automatically select needed local WebDriver using Java 8 method reference used as lambda expression.

Code examples in the current post can be found in GitHub selenium-samples-java/design-patterns repository.

Java 8 features

In this example lambda expression and method reference, Java 8 features are used. More in Java 8 features can be found in Java 8 features – Lambda expressions, Interface changes, Stream API, DateTime API post.

Functional interface

Before explaining lambda it is needed to understand the idea of a functional interface as they are leveraged for use with lambda expressions. A functional interface is an interface that has only one abstract method that is to be implemented. A functional interface may or may not have default or static methods (again new Java 8 feature). Although not mandatory, a good practice is to annotate the functional interface with @FunctionalInterface.

Lambda expressions

There is no such term in Java, but you can think of lambda expression as an anonymous method. Lambda expression is a piece of code that provides an inline implementation of a functional interface, eliminating the need for using anonymous classes. Lambda expressions facilitate functional programming and ease development by reducing the amount of code needed.

Method reference

Sometimes when using lambda expression all you do is call a method by name. Method reference provides an easy way to call the method making the code more readable.

Managing WebDriver

The proposed solution of managing WebDriver has enumeration called Browser and class called WebDriverFactory. Another important thing is web drivers should be placed in a folder with name webdrivers and named with a special pattern.

Browser enum

The code is shown below:

package com.automationrhapsody.designpatterns;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.function.Supplier;

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.ie.InternetExplorerDriver;

public enum Browser {
	FIREFOX("gecko", FirefoxDriver::new),
	CHROME("chrome", ChromeDriver::new),
	IE("ie", InternetExplorerDriver::new);

	private String name;
	private Supplier<WebDriver> driverSupplier;

	Browser(String name, Supplier<WebDriver> driverSupplier) {
		this.name = name;
		this.driverSupplier = driverSupplier;
	}

	public String getName() {
		return name;
	}

	public WebDriver getDriver() {
		return driverSupplier.get();
	}

	public static Browser fromString(String value) {
		for (Browser browser : values()) {
			if (value != null && value.toLowerCase().equals(browser.getName())) {
				return browser;
			}
		}
		System.out.println("Invalid driver name passed as 'browser' property. "
			+ "One of: " + Arrays.toString(values()) + " is expected.");
		return FIREFOX;
	}
}

Enumeration’s constructor has Supplier functional interface as a parameter. When the constructor is called method reference FirefoxDriver::new is called as a lambda expression which purpose is to instantiate new Firefox driver. If only lambda expression is used is would be: () -> new FirefoxDriver(). Notice that method reference is much shorter and easy to read. getDriver() method invokes Supplier’s get() method which is implemented by the lambda expression, so lambda expression is executed hence instantiating new web driver. With this approach Firefox web driver object is created only when getDriver() method is called.

WebDriverFactory

Code is:

package com.automationrhapsody.designpatterns;

import java.io.File;

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;

class WebDriverFactory {

	private static final String WEB_DRIVER_FOLDER = "webdrivers";

		public static WebDriver createWebDriver() {
		Browser browser = Browser.fromString(System.getProperty("browser"));
		String arch = System.getProperty("os.arch").contains("64") ? "64" : "32";
		String os = System.getProperty("os.name").toLowerCase().contains("win") 
				? "win.exe" : "linux";
		String driverFileName = browser.getName() + "driver-" + arch + "-" + os;
		String driverFilePath = driversFolder(new File("").getAbsolutePath());
		System.setProperty("webdriver." + browser.getName() + ".driver", 
				driverFilePath + driverFileName);
		return browser.getDriver();
	}

	private static String driversFolder(String path) {
		File file = new File(path);
		for (String item : file.list()) {
			if (WEB_DRIVER_FOLDER.equals(item)) {
				return file.getAbsolutePath() + "/" + WEB_DRIVER_FOLDER + "/";
			}
		}
		return driversFolder(file.getParent());
	}
}

This code recursively searches for a folder named webdrivers in the project. This is done because when you have a multi-module project running from IDE and from Maven has different root folder and finding web drivers is not possible from both simultaneously. Once the folder is found then proper web driver is selected based on OS and architecture. The code reads browser system property which can be passed from outside hence making the selection of web driver easy to configure. The important part is to have web drivers with special naming convention.

Web drivers naming convention

In order code above to work the web drivers should be placed in webdrivers folder in the project and their names should match the pattern: {DIVER_NAME}-{ARCHITECTURE}-{OS}, e.g. geckodriver-64-win.exe for Windows 64 bit and geckodriver-64-linux for Linux 64 bit.

Conclusion

The proposed solution is a very elegant way to manage your web drivers and select proper one just by passing -Dbrowser={BROWSER} Java system property.

Related Posts

Read more...