How to check if a list contains a sublist in a given order in Java

Question

I read in groovy how to check if a list contains a sublist - stackoverflow .

I am interested if there is a way of checking whether list contains sublist, but in a given order. For example, this code will give true,

    List<String> list = Arrays.asList("PRP", "VBP", "VBN", "NN", "NNS", "MD", "VB");
    List<String> sublist = Arrays.asList("MD", "VB", "VBN");
    System.out.println(list.containsAll(sublist));

But I want to get false back.

Answer 1

You can use method Collections.indexOfSubList .

Returns the starting position of the first occurrence of the specified target list within the specified source list, or -1 if there is no such occurrence. More formally, returns the lowest index i such that source.subList(i, i+target.size()).equals(target), or -1 if there is no such index. (Returns -1 if target.size() > source.size().)

int index=Collections.indexOfSubList(list , sublist);

SHORT:
If Collections.indexOfSubList(list , sublist) =! -1 you will have a match