How do I use map, filter, reduce in Java Stream API?

The map(), filter(), and reduce() methods are key operations used in Java Stream API which is used for processing collection objects in a functional programming manner.

Java Streams provide many powerful methods to perform common operations like map, filter, reduce, etc. These operations can transform and manipulate data in many ways.

  • map: The map() function is used to transform one type of Stream to another. It applies a function to each element of the Stream and then returns the function’s output as a new Stream. The number of input and output elements is the same, but the type or value of the elements may change.

Here’s an example:

package org.kodejava.basic;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

public class MapToUpperCase {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<String> myList = Arrays.asList("a1", "a2", "b1", "c2", "c1");
        myList.stream()
                .map(String::toUpperCase)
                .sorted()
                .forEach(System.out::println);
    }
}

Output:

A1
A2
B1
C1
C2

Another example to use map() to convert a list of Strings to a list of their lengths:

package org.kodejava.basic;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;

public class MapStringToLength {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<String> words = Arrays.asList("Java", "Stream", "API");
        List<Integer> lengths = words
                .stream()
                .map(String::length)
                .collect(Collectors.toList());

        System.out.println("Lengths = " + lengths);
    }
}

Output:

Lengths = [4, 6, 3]
  • filter: The filter() function is used to filter out elements from a Stream based upon a Predicate. It is an intermediate operation and returns a new stream which consists of elements of the current stream which satisfies the predicate condition.

Here’s an example:

package org.kodejava.basic;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

public class FilterStartWith {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<String> myList = Arrays.asList("a1", "a2", "b1", "c2", "c1");
        myList.stream()
                .filter(s -> s.startsWith("c"))
                .map(String::toUpperCase)
                .sorted()
                .forEach(System.out::println);
    }
}

Output:

C1
C2

Another example:

package org.kodejava.basic;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;

public class FilterEvenNumber {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<Integer> numbers = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6);
        List<Integer> evens = numbers
                .stream()
                .filter(n -> n % 2 == 0)
                .collect(Collectors.toList());

        System.out.println("Even numbers = " + evens);
    }
}

Output:

Even numbers = [2, 4, 6]
  • reduce: The reduce() function takes two parameters: an initial value, and a BinaryOperator function. It reduces the elements of a Stream to a single value using the BinaryOperator, by repeated application.

Here’s an example:

package org.kodejava.basic;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Optional;

public class ReduceSum {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<Integer> myList = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
        Optional<Integer> sum = myList
                .stream()
                .reduce((a, b) -> a + b);

        sum.ifPresent(System.out::println);
    }
}

Output:

15

In the above example, the reduce method will sum all the integers in the stream and then ifPresent is simply used to print the sum if the Optional is not empty.

All these operations can be chained together to build complex data processing pipelines. Furthermore, they are “lazy”, meaning they don’t perform any computations until a terminal operation (like collect()) is invoked on the stream.

How do I sum object property using Stream API?

If you have a collection of objects and want to sum one of their properties using the Java Stream API, you need to use the map() function to convert each object into the value of its property and then use the reduce() function to sum all the values.

Here is an example where we have a Person class with age property, and we want to get the sum of ages for a list of Person objects:

package org.kodejava.basic;

public class Person {
    private final int age;

    // Constructor, getters, and setters...
    public Person(int age) {
        this.age = age;
    }

    public int getAge() {
        return this.age;
    }
}
package org.kodejava.basic;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

public class PropertySumDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<Person> people = Arrays.asList(
                new Person(20),
                new Person(30),
                new Person(40));

        int totalAge = people.stream()
                .mapToInt(Person::getAge)
                .sum();

        System.out.println(totalAge);  // Outputs: 90
    }
}

In this example, mapToInt(Person::getAge) converts each Person object in the people stream into an int representing their age. The sum() function then adds up these ages, resulting in the total age.

How do I convert Map to JSON and vice versa using Jackson?

In the following code snippet we will convert java.util.Map object into JSON string and convert back the JSON string into Java Map object. In this example we will be using the Jackson library.

To convert from Map to JSON string the steps are:

  • Create a map of string keys and values.
  • Create an instance of Jackson ObjectMapper.
  • To convert map to JSON string we call the writeValueAsString() method and pass the map as argument.
// Converting Map to JSON
String json = null;
try {
    json = mapper.writeValueAsString(colours);
    System.out.println("json = " + json);
} catch (JsonProcessingException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

Now, to convert from JSON string back to map we can do it in the following steps:

  • Create a JSON string, in this case we use the one converted from the colours map.
  • Create an instance of Jackson ObjectMapper.
  • Call the mapper’s readValue() method with JSON string and an empty instance of TypeReference as arguments.
// Converting JSON to MAP
try {
    Map<String, String> newColours =
            mapper.readValue(json, new TypeReference<>() {});
} catch (JsonProcessingException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

And here is the complete code snippet.

package org.kodejava.jackson;

import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.JsonProcessingException;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.core.type.TypeReference;
import com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectMapper;

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

public class MapToJson {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Map<String, String> colours = new HashMap<>();
        colours.put("BLACK", "#000000");
        colours.put("RED", "#FF0000");
        colours.put("GREEN", "#008000");
        colours.put("BLUE", "#0000FF");
        colours.put("YELLOW", "#FFFF00");
        colours.put("WHITE", "#FFFFFF");

        ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();

        // Converting Map to JSON
        String json = null;
        try {
            json = mapper.writeValueAsString(colours);
            System.out.println("json = " + json);
        } catch (JsonProcessingException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        // Converting JSON to MAP
        try {
            Map<String, String> newColours =
                    mapper.readValue(json, new TypeReference<>() {});
            System.out.println("Map:");
            for (var entry : newColours.entrySet()) {
                System.out.println(entry.getKey() + " = " + entry.getValue());
            }
        } catch (JsonProcessingException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Running the code snippet above will print the following output:

json = {"RED":"#FF0000","WHITE":"#FFFFFF","BLUE":"#0000FF","BLACK":"#000000","YELLOW":"#FFFF00","GREEN":"#008000"}
Map:
RED = #FF0000
WHITE = #FFFFFF
BLUE = #0000FF
BLACK = #000000
YELLOW = #FFFF00
GREEN = #008000

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-core</artifactId>
        <version>2.17.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
        <version>2.17.1</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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How do I create JSON from a Map?

In the previous example we use JSONObject to directly put key-value pairs to create JSON string, using the various put() methods. Instead of doing that, we can also create JSON from a Map object. We create a Map with some key-value pairs in it, and pass it as an argument when instantiating a JSONObject.

These are the steps for creating JSON from a Map:

  • Create a Map object using a HashMap class.
  • Put some key-value pairs into the map object.
  • Create a JSONObject and pass the map as argument to its constructor.
  • Print the JSONObject, we call object.toString() to get the JSON string.

Let’s try the following code snippet.

package org.kodejava.json;

import org.json.JSONObject;

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

public class JSONFromMap {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<>();
        map.put("id", "1");
        map.put("name", "Alice");
        map.put("age", "20");

        JSONObject object = new JSONObject(map);
        System.out.println(object);
    }
}

Running this code produces the following output:

{"name":"Alice","age":"20","id":"1"}

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.json</groupId>
        <artifactId>json</artifactId>
        <version>20240303</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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How do I access Map element using Spring EL?

In the previous example, How do I access collections members using Spring EL?, you have seen how to access a member of a collection using Spring EL square-braces [] operator. In this post you will learn how to use the same operator to access an element of a Map object.

For demonstration, we will use the same Book class in the previous example to create the bean. The class without the corresponding getters and setters is as follows:

package org.kodejava.spring.core.el;

public class Book {
    private Long id;
    private String title;
    private String author;
    private String type;

    // Getters & Setters
}

Next, let’s create the spring configuration file. In this configuration file we create a map using the <util:map> with the map id of books and add some key-value pair entries in the map.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xmlns:util="http://www.springframework.org/schema/util" xmlns:p="http://www.springframework.org/schema/p"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/util http://www.springframework.org/schema/util/spring-util.xsd">

    <util:map id="books">
        <entry key="0-201-61622-X" value="The Pragmatic Programmer" />
        <entry key="978-1-934356-56-2" value="Hello, Android" />
        <entry key="978-1-933988-69-6" value="Secret of The JavaScript Ninja" />
        <entry key="978-1-449-37017-6" value="Java EE 7 Essentials" />
        <entry key="9781935182962" value="Spring Roo in Action" />
    </util:map>

    <bean id="book1" class="org.kodejava.spring.core.el.Book" p:title="#{books['9781935182962']}" />
    <bean id="book2" class="org.kodejava.spring.core.el.Book" p:title="#{books['978-1-933988-69-6']}" />

</beans>

After defining the map, you can see how we access an element of the map. We use the square-braces operator [], we use the same operator as we are accessing a collection member. But instead of passing the index to the operator we pass the key of the map element that we are going to read.

<bean id="book2" class="org.kodejava.spring.core.el.Book" p:title="#{books['978-1-933988-69-6']}"/>

Finally, to run the configuration you’ll need to create the following class:

package org.kodejava.spring.core.el;

import org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext;

public class SpELMapExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        try (ClassPathXmlApplicationContext context =
                     new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("spel-map.xml")) {

            Book book1 = (Book) context.getBean("book1");
            Book book2 = (Book) context.getBean("book2");

            System.out.println("book1.getTitle() = " + book1.getTitle());
            System.out.println("book2.getTitle() = " + book2.getTitle());
        }
    }
}

And example of output produced by this code can be seen below:

book1.getTitle() = Spring Roo in Action
book2.getTitle() = Secret of The JavaScript Ninja

Maven Dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <version>5.3.23</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
        <version>5.3.23</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-context-support</artifactId>
        <version>5.3.23</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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