Java 8 Stream with batch processing

Question

I have a large file that contains a list of items.

I would like to create a batch of items, make an HTTP request with this batch (all of the items are needed as parameters in the HTTP request). I can do it very easily with a for loop, but as Java 8 lover, I want to try writing this with Java 8's Stream framework (and reap the benefits of lazy processing).

Example:

List<String> batch = new ArrayList<>(BATCH_SIZE);
for (int i = 0; i < data.size(); i++) {
  batch.add(data.get(i));
  if (batch.size() == BATCH_SIZE) process(batch);
}

if (batch.size() > 0) process(batch);

I want to do something a long the line of lazyFileStream.group(500).map(processBatch).collect(toList())

What would be the best way to do this?

Answer 1

For completeness, here is a Guava solution.

Iterators.partition(stream.iterator(), batchSize).forEachRemaining(this::process);

In the question the collection is available so a stream isn't needed and it can be written as,

Iterables.partition(data, batchSize).forEach(this::process);

Answer 2

Pure Java-8 implementation is also possible:

int BATCH = 500;
IntStream.range(0, (data.size()+BATCH-1)/BATCH)
         .mapToObj(i -> data.subList(i*BATCH, Math.min(data.size(), (i+1)*BATCH)))
         .forEach(batch -> process(batch));

Note that unlike JOOl it can work nicely in parallel (provided that your data is a random access list).

Answer 3

Pure Java 8 solution:

We can create a custom collector to do this elegantly, which takes in a batch size and a Consumer to process each batch:

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Collections;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Set;
import java.util.function.*;
import java.util.stream.Collector;

import static java.util.Objects.requireNonNull;


/**
 * Collects elements in the stream and calls the supplied batch processor
 * after the configured batch size is reached.
 *
 * In case of a parallel stream, the batch processor may be called with
 * elements less than the batch size.
 *
 * The elements are not kept in memory, and the final result will be an
 * empty list.
 *
 * @param <T> Type of the elements being collected
 */
class BatchCollector<T> implements Collector<T, List<T>, List<T>> {

    private final int batchSize;
    private final Consumer<List<T>> batchProcessor;


    /**
     * Constructs the batch collector
     *
     * @param batchSize the batch size after which the batchProcessor should be called
     * @param batchProcessor the batch processor which accepts batches of records to process
     */
    BatchCollector(int batchSize, Consumer<List<T>> batchProcessor) {
        batchProcessor = requireNonNull(batchProcessor);

        this.batchSize = batchSize;
        this.batchProcessor = batchProcessor;
    }

    public Supplier<List<T>> supplier() {
        return ArrayList::new;
    }

    public BiConsumer<List<T>, T> accumulator() {
        return (ts, t) -> {
            ts.add(t);
            if (ts.size() >= batchSize) {
                batchProcessor.accept(ts);
                ts.clear();
            }
        };
    }

    public BinaryOperator<List<T>> combiner() {
        return (ts, ots) -> {
            // process each parallel list without checking for batch size
            // avoids adding all elements of one to another
            // can be modified if a strict batching mode is required
            batchProcessor.accept(ts);
            batchProcessor.accept(ots);
            return Collections.emptyList();
        };
    }

    public Function<List<T>, List<T>> finisher() {
        return ts -> {
            batchProcessor.accept(ts);
            return Collections.emptyList();
        };
    }

    public Set<Characteristics> characteristics() {
        return Collections.emptySet();
    }
}

Optionally then create a helper utility class:

import java.util.List;
import java.util.function.Consumer;
import java.util.stream.Collector;

public class StreamUtils {

    /**
     * Creates a new batch collector
     * @param batchSize the batch size after which the batchProcessor should be called
     * @param batchProcessor the batch processor which accepts batches of records to process
     * @param <T> the type of elements being processed
     * @return a batch collector instance
     */
    public static <T> Collector<T, List<T>, List<T>> batchCollector(int batchSize, Consumer<List<T>> batchProcessor) {
        return new BatchCollector<T>(batchSize, batchProcessor);
    }
}

Example usage:

List<Integer> input = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10);
List<Integer> output = new ArrayList<>();

int batchSize = 3;
Consumer<List<Integer>> batchProcessor = xs -> output.addAll(xs);

input.stream()
     .collect(StreamUtils.batchCollector(batchSize, batchProcessor));

I've posted my code on GitHub as well, if anyone wants to take a look:

Link to Github