Let’s Stream a Map in Java 8 with jOOλ

Posted on by lukaseder
I wanted to find an easy way to stream a Map in Java 8. Guess what? There isn’t! What I would’ve expected for convenience is the following method: 

public interface Map<K, V> {

    default Stream<Entry<K, V>> stream() {
        return entrySet().stream();
    }    
}
But there’s no such method. There are probably a variety of reasons why such a method shouldn’t exist, e.g.:
  • There’s no “clear” preference for entrySet() being chosen over keySet() or values(), as a stream source
  • Map isn’t really a collection. It’s not even an Iterable
  • That wasn’t the design goal
  • The EG didn’t have enough time
Well, there is a very compelling reason for Map to have been retrofitted to provide both an entrySet().stream() and to finally implement Iterable<Entry<K, V>>. And that reason is the fact that we now have Map.forEach(): 

default void forEach(
        BiConsumer<? super K, ? super V> action) {
    Objects.requireNonNull(action);
    for (Map.Entry<K, V> entry : entrySet()) {
        K k;
        V v;
        try {
            k = entry.getKey();
            v = entry.getValue();
        } catch(IllegalStateException ise) {
            // this usually means the entry is no longer in the map.
            throw new ConcurrentModificationException(ise);
        }
        action.accept(k, v);
    }
}
forEach() in this case accepts a BiConsumer that really consumes entries in the map. If you search through JDK source code, there are really very few references to the BiConsumer type outside of Map.forEach() and perhaps a couple of CompletableFuture methods and a couple of streams collection methods. So, one could almost assume that BiConsumer was strongly driven by the needs of this forEach() method, which would be a strong case for making Map.Entry a more important type throughout the collections API (we would have preferred the type Tuple2, of course). Let’s continue this line of thought. There is also Iterable.forEach(): 

public interface Iterable<T> {
    default void forEach(Consumer<? super T> action) {
        Objects.requireNonNull(action);
        for (T t : this) {
            action.accept(t);
        }
    }
}
Both Map.forEach() and Iterable.forEach() intuitively iterate the “entries” of their respective collection model, although there is a subtle difference:
  • Iterable.forEach() expects a Consumer taking a single value
  • Map.forEach() expects a BiConsumer taking two values: the key and the value (NOT a Map.Entry!)
Think about it this way:
This makes the two methods incompatible in a “duck typing sense”, which makes the two types even more different
Bummer!

Improving Map with jOOλ

We find that quirky and counter-intuitive. forEach() is really not the only use-case of Map traversal and transformation. We’d love to have a Stream<Entry<K, V>>, or even better, a Stream<Tuple2<T1, T2>>. So we implemented that in jOOλ, a library which we’ve developed for our integration tests at jOOQ. With jOOλ, you can now wrap a Map in a Seq type (“Seq” for sequential stream, a stream with many more functional features): 

Map<Integer, String> map = new LinkedHashMap<>();
map.put(1, "a");
map.put(2, "b");
map.put(3, "c");

assertEquals(
  Arrays.asList(
    tuple(1, "a"), 
    tuple(2, "b"), 
    tuple(3, "c")
  ),

  Seq.seq(map).toList()
);
What you can do with it? How about creating a new Map, swapping keys and values in one go: 

System.out.println(
  Seq.seq(map)
     .map(Tuple2::swap)
     .toMap(Tuple2::v1, Tuple2::v2)
);

System.out.println(
  Seq.seq(map)
     .toMap(Tuple2::v2, Tuple2::v1)
);
Both of the above will yield: 
{a=1, b=2, c=3}
Just for the record, here’s how to swap keys and values with standard JDK API: 

System.out.println(
  map.entrySet()
     .stream()
     .collect(Collectors.toMap(
         Map.Entry::getValue, 
         Map.Entry::getKey
     ))
);
It can be done, but the every day verbosity of standard Java API makes things a bit hard to read / write

Published by lukaseder

I made jOOQ

4 thoughts on “Let’s Stream a Map in Java 8 with jOOλ”

  1. I’ve been playing with JOOλ over the last few days and the Seq class adds some great features on top of the streams api. What I couldn’t try is your Seq.seq(map) example as it’s not in a release yet. I can reproduce using the code from github, but do you know when the next version will be released?

    Reply

    1. We’re quite busy with the upcoming jOOQ release right now – but it’s probably a good idea to ship another jOOλ release soon. Will do before the end of November 2014

      Reply

  2. I hate that Map doesn’t have stream(). I hate that Collections.toMap doesn’t have an overload that takes Entry. I love Brian Goetz — but everytime I hear some pedantic justification for extra verbosity over reasonable features (that MANY other SDKs offer out of the box)– I want to scream. I just want to filter a map! Groovy this would be a one liner with the filter closure being the bulk of the code. And in java8 I have to write a novel:

    map.entrySet()
   .stream()
   .filter(e -> shouldIKeep(e.getKey())
   .collect(Collectors.toMap(Entry::getKey, Entry::getValue));
    Reply

    1. I know I know. I agree with everything. Including the pedantic justification part :)

      Oh well. I then wrote jOOλ, trying to be constructive and harvesting additional brand value for jOOQ. But yes. I wish some JDK version would render all of jOOλ obsolete…

      Reply

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