Why is this java Stream operated upon twice?

Question

The Java 8 API says:

Traversal of the pipeline source does not begin until the terminal operation of the pipeline is executed.

So why the following code throws :

java.lang.IllegalStateException: stream has already been operated upon or closed

Stream<Integer> stream = Stream.of(1,2,3); stream.filter( x-> x>1 ); stream.filter( x-> x>2 ).forEach(System.out::print); 

The first filtering operation according to the API is not supposed to operate on the Stream.

Answer 1

This happens because you are ignoring the return value of filter.

Stream<Integer> stream = Stream.of(1,2,3); stream.filter( x-> x>1 ); // <-- ignoring the return value here stream.filter( x-> x>2 ).forEach(System.out::print); 

Stream.filter returns a new Stream consisting of the elements of this stream that match the given predicate. But it's important to note that it's a new Stream. The old one has been operated upon when the filter was added to it. But the new one wasn't.

Quoting from Stream Javadoc:

A stream should be operated on (invoking an intermediate or terminal stream operation) only once.

In this case, filter is the intermediate operation that operated on the old Stream instance.

So this code will work fine:

Stream<Integer> stream = Stream.of(1,2,3); stream = stream.filter( x-> x>1 ); // <-- NOT ignoring the return value here stream.filter( x-> x>2 ).forEach(System.out::print); 

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As noted by Brian Goetz, you would commonly chain those calls together:

Stream.of(1,2,3).filter( x-> x>1 )                 .filter( x-> x>2 )                 .forEach(System.out::print); 

Answer 2

filter() method uses the stream and returns one other Stream instance that you ignore in you example.

filter is a intermediate operation but you can't call filter twice on same stream instance

Your code should be write as follow:

Stream<Integer> stream = Stream.of(1,2,3);                                .filter( x-> x>1 )                                .filter( x-> x>2); stream.forEach(System.out::print); 

As filter is an intermediate operation, "nothing" is done when calling theses methods. All the job is really processed when calling forEach() method