Flattening a List of List to a List with Java 8 stream API

Question

I have the following code which could be much simpler using Java 8 stream API:

List<List<String>> listOfListValues;
public List<String> getAsFlattenedList() {
        List<String> listOfValues= new ArrayList<>();
        for (List<String> value: listOfListValues) {
            listOfValues.add(String.valueOf(value));
        }
        return listOfValues;
    }

I searched for a solution on SO and found this:

listOfListValues.stream()
        .flatMap(List::stream)
        .collect(Collectors.toList());

But this doesn't do the same what I want.

Answer 1

You require only a "simple" map here:

List<List<String>> listOfListValues;
public List<String> getAsFlattenedList() {
    return listOfListValues.stream()
            .map(String::valueOf)
            .collect(toList());
}

flatMap is rather used to transform one Stream to another, which makes sense if you need more entries or less then currently available (or just a newly mapped Stream to filter/map/etc it further down), e.g.:

• count all the unique strings of all lists:

  listOfListValues.stream()
                  .flatMap(List::stream) // we want to count all, also those from the "inner" list...
                  .distinct()
                  .count()
  

• truncate entries after a certain size:

  listOfListValues.stream()
          .flatMap(list -> {
              if (list.size() > 3) // in this case we use only some of the entries
                  return Stream.concat(list.subList(0, 2).stream(), Stream.of("..."));
              else
                  return list.stream();
          })
          .collect(Collectors.toList());
  

• flattening values of a map for several interested keys:

  Map<Key, List<Value>> map = new HashMap<>();
  Stream<Value> valueStream = interestedKeys.stream()
                                            .map(map::get)
                                            .flatMap(List::stream);
  

Answer 2

No need to use flatmap.

listOfListValues.stream()
        .map(String::valueOf)
        .collect(Collectors.toList());

Explanation: The flatMap function combines a map and a flat operation. This is not needed. Flattening means converting something like [ [1,2,3],[4,5,6,7],[8,9] ] to [ 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 ] i.e. converting a 2D array to a 1D array.

Answer 3

You can do it like so,

listOfListValues.stream().map(List::toString).collect(Collectors.toList());