Java 8 - Streams
Stream is a new abstract layer introduced in Java 8. Using stream, you can process data in a declarative way similar to SQL statements. For example, consider the following SQL statement.
SELECT max[salary], employee_id, employee_name FROM EmployeeThe above SQL expression automatically returns the maximum salaried employee's details, without doing any computation on the developer's end. Using collections framework in Java, a developer has to use loops and make repeated checks. Another concern is efficiency; as multi-core processors are available at ease, a Java developer has to write parallel code processing that can be pretty error-prone.
To resolve such issues, Java 8 introduced the concept of stream that lets the developer to process data declaratively and leverage multicore architecture without the need to write any specific code for it.
What is Stream?
Stream represents a sequence of objects from a source, which supports aggregate operations. Following are the characteristics of a Stream
Sequence of elements A stream provides a set of elements of specific type in a sequential manner. A stream gets/computes elements on demand. It never stores the elements.
Source Stream takes Collections, Arrays, or I/O resources as input source.
Aggregate operations Stream supports aggregate operations like filter, map, limit, reduce, find, match, and so on.
Pipelining Most of the stream operations return stream itself so that their result can be pipelined. These operations are called intermediate operations and their function is to take input, process them, and return output to the target. collect[] method is a terminal operation which is normally present at the end of the pipelining operation to mark the end of the stream.
Automatic iterations Stream operations do the iterations internally over the source elements provided, in contrast to Collections where explicit iteration is required.
Generating Streams
With Java 8, Collection interface has two methods to generate a Stream.
stream[] Returns a sequential stream considering collection as its source.
parallelStream[] Returns a parallel Stream considering collection as its source.
forEach
Stream has provided a new method forEach to iterate each element of the stream. The following code segment shows how to print 10 random numbers using forEach.
Random random = new Random[]; random.ints[].limit[10].forEach[System.out::println];map
The map method is used to map each element to its corresponding result. The following code segment prints unique squares of numbers using map.
List numbers = Arrays.asList[3, 2, 2, 3, 7, 3, 5]; //get list of unique squares List squaresList = numbers.stream[].map[ i -> i*i].distinct[].collect[Collectors.toList[]];filter
The filter method is used to eliminate elements based on a criteria. The following code segment prints a count of empty strings using filter.
Liststrings = Arrays.asList["abc", "", "bc", "efg", "abcd","", "jkl"]; //get count of empty string int count = strings.stream[].filter[string -> string.isEmpty[]].count[];limit
The limit method is used to reduce the size of the stream. The following code segment shows how to print 10 random numbers using limit.
Random random = new Random[]; random.ints[].limit[10].forEach[System.out::println];sorted
The sorted method is used to sort the stream. The following code segment shows how to print 10 random numbers in a sorted order.
Random random = new Random[]; random.ints[].limit[10].sorted[].forEach[System.out::println];Parallel Processing
parallelStream is the alternative of stream for parallel processing. Take a look at the following code segment that prints a count of empty strings using parallelStream.
It is very easy to switch between sequential and parallel streams.
Collectors
Collectors are used to combine the result of processing on the elements of a stream. Collectors can be used to return a list or a string.
Liststrings = Arrays.asList["abc", "", "bc", "efg", "abcd","", "jkl"]; List filtered = strings.stream[].filter[string -> !string.isEmpty[]].collect[Collectors.toList[]]; System.out.println["Filtered List: " + filtered]; String mergedString = strings.stream[].filter[string -> !string.isEmpty[]].collect[Collectors.joining[", "]]; System.out.println["Merged String: " + mergedString];Statistics
With Java 8, statistics collectors are introduced to calculate all statistics when stream processing is being done.
List numbers = Arrays.asList[3, 2, 2, 3, 7, 3, 5]; IntSummaryStatistics stats = numbers.stream[].mapToInt[[x] -> x].summaryStatistics[]; System.out.println["Highest number in List : " + stats.getMax[]]; System.out.println["Lowest number in List : " + stats.getMin[]]; System.out.println["Sum of all numbers : " + stats.getSum[]]; System.out.println["Average of all numbers : " + stats.getAverage[]];Stream Example
Create the following Java program using any editor of your choice in, say, C:\> JAVA.
Java8Tester.java
Verify the Result
Compile the class using javac compiler as follows
C:\JAVA>javac Java8Tester.javaNow run the Java8Tester as follows
C:\JAVA>java Java8TesterIt should produce the following result
Using Java 7: List: [abc, , bc, efg, abcd, , jkl] Empty Strings: 2 Strings of length 3: 3 Filtered List: [abc, bc, efg, abcd, jkl] Merged String: abc, bc, efg, abcd, jkl Squares List: [9, 4, 49, 25] List: [1, 2, 13, 4, 15, 6, 17, 8, 19] Highest number in List : 19 Lowest number in List : 1 Sum of all numbers : 85 Average of all numbers : 9 Random Numbers: -1279735475 903418352 -1133928044 -1571118911 628530462 18407523 -881538250 -718932165 270259229 421676854 Using Java 8: List: [abc, , bc, efg, abcd, , jkl] Empty Strings: 2 Strings of length 3: 3 Filtered List: [abc, bc, efg, abcd, jkl] Merged String: abc, bc, efg, abcd, jkl Squares List: [9, 4, 49, 25] List: [1, 2, 13, 4, 15, 6, 17, 8, 19] Highest number in List : 19 Lowest number in List : 1 Sum of all numbers : 85 Average of all numbers : 9.444444444444445 Random Numbers: -1009474951 -551240647 -2484714 181614550 933444268 1579250773 1627454872 1683033687 1798939493 Empty Strings: 2Useful Video Courses
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