Java 8 streams: conditional Collector

Question

I want to use Java 8 streams to convert a List of String values to a single String. A List of values like "A", "B" should return a String like "Values: 'A', 'B' added". This works fine, however I want to change the Pre- and Postfix depending on the amount of values. For example, if I have a List of only "A" I want the resulting String to be "Value 'A' added".

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

public class HelloWorld
{
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    List<String> values = new ArrayList<>();
    values.add("A");
    values.add("B");
    values.add("C");
    List<String> value = new ArrayList<>();
    value.add("A");
    System.out.println(log(values));
    System.out.println(log(value));
  }
  public static String log(List<String> values){
    return values.stream()
                 //.filter(...)
                 .map(x -> "'" + x + "'")
                 .collect(Collectors.joining(",","values:"," added"));

  }
}

Is there a way to change the Collctor, depending on the size of the resulting List? Then I could do something like

.collect(Collectors.joining(",", size = 1 ? "Value " : "Values: "," added"));

I would prefer a single stream operation without an intermediate List result. I also do not know the result beforehand, because I filter the stream.

Edit: I ended up using Eugene's suggestion. What I wanted to do is find the differences between two Lists and return the differences in human readable form. Works nicely!

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


public class HelloWorld
{

  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    List<String> oldValues = new ArrayList<>();
    oldValues.add("A");
    oldValues.add("B");
    oldValues.add("C");
    List<String> newValues = new ArrayList<>();
    newValues.add("A");
    newValues.add("C");
    newValues.add("D");
    newValues.add("E");
    System.out.println(HelloWorld.<String>log(oldValues, newValues, " deleted"));
    System.out.println(HelloWorld.<String>log(newValues, oldValues, " added"));
  }

    public static <T> String log(List<T> first, List<T> second, String postfix) {
        return  (String) first
                .stream()
                .filter(x -> !second.contains(x))
                .map(x -> "'" + x.toString() + "'").
                collect(Collectors.collectingAndThen(Collectors.toList(),
                    list -> {
                        if (list.size() == 1) {
                            return "Value " + list.get(0) + postfix;
                        }
                        if (list.size() > 1) {
                            List<String> strings = new ArrayList<>(list.size());
                            for (Object object : list) {
                                strings.add(object.toString());
                            }
                            return "Values: " + String.join(",", strings) +  postfix;
                        }
                        return "";
                    }));
    }
}

Outputs:

Value 'B' deleted
Values: 'D','E' added

Answer 1

Unfortunately, the StringJoiner used by the joining() collector only allows an alternative representation for the “no values” case, but not for the single value case. To add that feature, we have to track the count manually, e.g.

public static String log(List<String> values) {
    return values.stream()
                 //.filter(...)
                 .collect(
                         () -> new Object() {
                             StringJoiner sj = new StringJoiner("', '", "'", "' added");
                             int num;
                             String result() {
                                 return num==0? "No values added":
                                                (num==1? "Value ": "Values ")+sj;
                             }
                         },
                         (o,s) -> { o.sj.add(s); o.num++; },
                         (o,p) -> { o.sj.merge(p.sj); o.num+=p.num; }
                 ).result();
}

This is quiet complicated, but a “clean” solution; it would even work with parallel streams, if ever needed.

Example

System.out.println(log(Arrays.asList("A", "B", "C")));
System.out.println(log(Arrays.asList("A")));
System.out.println(log(Collections.emptyList()));

Values 'A', 'B', 'C' added
Value 'A' added
No values added

Answer 2

You could do it via:

 return values.stream()
            .map(x -> "'" + x + "'")
            .collect(Collectors.collectingAndThen(Collectors.toList(),
                    list -> {
                        if (list.size() == 1) {
                            return "value" + list.get(0);
                        }
                        if (list.size() > 1) {
                            return String.join(",", list);
                        }
                        return "Nothing found";
                    }));