What is the best way to filter a Java Collection?

Question

I want to filter a java.util.Collection based on a predicate.

Answer 1

Since java 9 Collectors.filtering is enabled:

public static <T, A, R>
    Collector<T, ?, R> filtering(Predicate<? super T> predicate,
                                 Collector<? super T, A, R> downstream)

Thus filtering should be:

collection.stream().collect(Collectors.filtering(predicate, collector))

Example:

List<Integer> oddNumbers = List.of(1, 19, 15, 10, -10).stream()
            .collect(Collectors.filtering(i -> i % 2 == 1, Collectors.toList()));

Answer 2

I needed to filter a list depending on the values already present in the list. For example, remove all values following that is less than the current value. {2 5 3 4 7 5} -> {2 5 7}. Or for example to remove all duplicates {3 5 4 2 3 5 6} -> {3 5 4 2 6}.

public class Filter {
    public static <T> void List(List<T> list, Chooser<T> chooser) {
        List<Integer> toBeRemoved = new ArrayList<>();
        leftloop:
        for (int right = 1; right < list.size(); ++right) {
            for (int left = 0; left < right; ++left) {
                if (toBeRemoved.contains(left)) {
                    continue;
                }
                Keep keep = chooser.choose(list.get(left), list.get(right));
                switch (keep) {
                    case LEFT:
                        toBeRemoved.add(right);
                        continue leftloop;
                    case RIGHT:
                        toBeRemoved.add(left);
                        break;
                    case NONE:
                        toBeRemoved.add(left);
                        toBeRemoved.add(right);
                        continue leftloop;
                }
            }
        }

        Collections.sort(toBeRemoved, new Comparator<Integer>() {
            @Override
            public int compare(Integer o1, Integer o2) {
                return o2 - o1;
            }
        });

        for (int i : toBeRemoved) {
            if (i >= 0 && i < list.size()) {
                list.remove(i);
            }
        }
    }

    public static <T> void List(List<T> list, Keeper<T> keeper) {
        Iterator<T> iterator = list.iterator();
        while (iterator.hasNext()) {
            if (!keeper.keep(iterator.next())) {
                iterator.remove();
            }
        }
    }

    public interface Keeper<E> {
        boolean keep(E obj);
    }

    public interface Chooser<E> {
        Keep choose(E left, E right);
    }

    public enum Keep {
        LEFT, RIGHT, BOTH, NONE;
    }
}

This will bee used like this.

List<String> names = new ArrayList<>();
names.add("Anders");
names.add("Stefan");
names.add("Anders");
Filter.List(names, new Filter.Chooser<String>() {
    @Override
    public Filter.Keep choose(String left, String right) {
        return left.equals(right) ? Filter.Keep.LEFT : Filter.Keep.BOTH;
    }
});

Answer 3

https://code.google.com/p/joquery/

Supports different possibilities,

Given collection,

Collection<Dto> testList = new ArrayList<>();

of type,

class Dto
{
    private int id;
    private String text;

    public int getId()
    {
        return id;
    }

    public int getText()
    {
        return text;
    }
}

Filter

Java 7

Filter<Dto> query = CQ.<Dto>filter(testList)
    .where()
    .property("id").eq().value(1);
Collection<Dto> filtered = query.list();

Java 8

Filter<Dto> query = CQ.<Dto>filter(testList)
    .where()
    .property(Dto::getId)
    .eq().value(1);
Collection<Dto> filtered = query.list();

Also,

Filter<Dto> query = CQ.<Dto>filter()
        .from(testList)
        .where()
        .property(Dto::getId).between().value(1).value(2)
        .and()
        .property(Dto::grtText).in().value(new string[]{"a","b"});

Sorting (also available for the Java 7)

Filter<Dto> query = CQ.<Dto>filter(testList)
        .orderBy()
        .property(Dto::getId)
        .property(Dto::getName)
    Collection<Dto> sorted = query.list();

Grouping (also available for the Java 7)

GroupQuery<Integer,Dto> query = CQ.<Dto,Dto>query(testList)
        .group()
        .groupBy(Dto::getId)
    Collection<Grouping<Integer,Dto>> grouped = query.list();

Joins (also available for the Java 7)

Given,

class LeftDto
{
    private int id;
    private String text;

    public int getId()
    {
        return id;
    }

    public int getText()
    {
        return text;
    }
}

class RightDto
{
    private int id;
    private int leftId;
    private String text;

    public int getId()
    {
        return id;
    }

    public int getLeftId()
        {
            return leftId;
        }

    public int getText()
    {
        return text;
    }
}

class JoinedDto
{
    private int leftId;
    private int rightId;
    private String text;

    public JoinedDto(int leftId,int rightId,String text)
    {
        this.leftId = leftId;
        this.rightId = rightId;
        this.text = text;
    }

    public int getLeftId()
    {
        return leftId;
    }

    public int getRightId()
        {
            return rightId;
        }

    public int getText()
    {
        return text;
    }
}

Collection<LeftDto> leftList = new ArrayList<>();

Collection<RightDto> rightList = new ArrayList<>();

Can be Joined like,

Collection<JoinedDto> results = CQ.<LeftDto, LeftDto>query().from(leftList)
                .<RightDto, JoinedDto>innerJoin(CQ.<RightDto, RightDto>query().from(rightList))
                .on(LeftFyo::getId, RightDto::getLeftId)
                .transformDirect(selection ->  new JoinedDto(selection.getLeft().getText()
                                                     , selection.getLeft().getId()
                                                     , selection.getRight().getId())
                                 )
                .list();

Expressions

Filter<Dto> query = CQ.<Dto>filter()
    .from(testList)
    .where()
    .exec(s -> s.getId() + 1).eq().value(2);

Answer 4

Consider Google Collections for an updated Collections framework that supports generics.

UPDATE: The google collections library is now deprecated. You should use the latest release of Guava instead. It still has all the same extensions to the collections framework including a mechanism for filtering based on a predicate.

Answer 5

Are you sure you want to filter the Collection itself, rather than an iterator?

see org.apache.commons.collections.iterators.FilterIterator

or using version 4 of apache commons org.apache.commons.collections4.iterators.FilterIterator

Answer 6

Since the early release of Java 8, you could try something like:

Collection<T> collection = ...;
Stream<T> stream = collection.stream().filter(...);

For example, if you had a list of integers and you wanted to filter the numbers that are > 10 and then print out those numbers to the console, you could do something like:

List<Integer> numbers = Arrays.asList(12, 74, 5, 8, 16);
numbers.stream().filter(n -> n > 10).forEach(System.out::println);