Java, return if trimmed String in List contains String

Question

In Java, I want to check whether a String exists in a List<String> myList.

Something like this:

if(myList.contains("A")){     //true }else{     // false } 

The problem is myList can contain un-trimmed data:

{'  A', 'B  ', '  C  '} 

I want it to return true if my item 'B' is in the list. How should I do this? I would like to avoid a looping structure.

Answer 1

With Java 8 Stream API:

List<String> myList = Arrays.asList("  A", "B  ", "  C  "); return myList.stream().anyMatch(str -> str.trim().equals("B")); 

Answer 2

You need to iterate your list and call String#trim for searching:

String search = "A"; for(String str: myList) {     if(str.trim().contains(search))        return true; } return false; 

OR if you want to perform ignore case search, then use:

search = search.toLowerCase(); // outside loop  // inside the loop if(str.trim().toLowerCase().contains(search))