-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 10.9k
CollectionUtilitiesExplained
Any programmer with experience with the JDK Collections Framework knows and
loves the utilities available in java.util.Collections
. Guava provides many
more utilities along these lines: static methods applicable to all collections.
These are among the most popular and mature parts of Guava.
Methods corresponding to a particular interface are grouped in a relatively intuitive manner:
Interface | JDK or Guava? | Corresponding Guava utility class |
---|---|---|
Collection |
JDK | Collections2 |
List |
JDK | Lists |
Set |
JDK | Sets |
SortedSet |
JDK | Sets |
Map |
JDK | Maps |
SortedMap |
JDK | Maps |
Queue |
JDK | Queues |
Multiset |
Guava | Multisets |
Multimap |
Guava | Multimaps |
BiMap |
Guava | Maps |
Table |
Guava | Tables |
Looking for transform, filter, and the like? That stuff is in our functional programming article, under functional idioms.
Before JDK 7, constructing new generic collections requires unpleasant code duplication:
List<TypeThatsTooLongForItsOwnGood> list = new ArrayList<TypeThatsTooLongForItsOwnGood>();
I think we can all agree that this is unpleasant. Guava provides static methods that use generics to infer the type on the right side:
List<TypeThatsTooLongForItsOwnGood> list = Lists.newArrayList();
Map<KeyType, LongishValueType> map = Maps.newLinkedHashMap();
To be sure, the diamond operator in JDK 7 makes this less of a hassle:
List<TypeThatsTooLongForItsOwnGood> list = new ArrayList<>();
But Guava goes further than this. With the factory method pattern, we can initialize collections with their starting elements very conveniently.
Set<Type> copySet = Sets.newHashSet(elements);
List<String> theseElements = Lists.newArrayList("alpha", "beta", "gamma");
Additionally, with the ability to name factory methods (Effective Java item 1), we can improve the readability of initializing collections to sizes:
List<Type> exactly100 = Lists.newArrayListWithCapacity(100);
List<Type> approx100 = Lists.newArrayListWithExpectedSize(100);
Set<Type> approx100Set = Sets.newHashSetWithExpectedSize(100);
The precise static factory methods provided are listed with their corresponding utility classes below.
Note: New collection types introduced by Guava don't expose raw constructors, or have initializers in the utility classes. Instead, they expose static factory methods directly, for example:
Multiset<String> multiset = HashMultiset.create();
Whenever possible, Guava prefers to provide utilities accepting an Iterable
rather than a Collection
. Here at Google, it's not out of the ordinary to
encounter a "collection" that isn't actually stored in main memory, but is being
gathered from a database, or from another data center, and can't support
operations like size()
without actually grabbing all of the elements.
As a result, many of the operations you might expect to see supported for all
collections can be found in Iterables
. Additionally, most Iterables
methods have a corresponding version in Iterators
that accepts the raw
iterator.
The overwhelming majority of operations in the Iterables
class are lazy:
they only advance the backing iteration when absolutely necessary. Methods that
themselves return Iterables
return lazily computed views, rather than
explicitly constructing a collection in memory.
As of Guava 12, Iterables
is supplemented by the FluentIterable
class,
which wraps an Iterable
and provides a "fluent" syntax for many of these
operations.
The following is a selection of the most commonly used utilities, although many
of the more "functional" methods in Iterables
are discussed in Guava
functional idioms.
Method | Description | See Also |
---|---|---|
concat(Iterable<Iterable>) |
Returns a lazy view of the concatenation of several iterables. | concat(Iterable...) |
frequency(Iterable, Object) |
Returns the number of occurrences of the object. | Compare Collections.frequency(Collection, Object) ; see Multiset
|
partition(Iterable, int) |
Returns an unmodifiable view of the iterable partitioned into chunks of the specified size. |
Lists.partition(List, int) , paddedPartition(Iterable, int)
|
getFirst(Iterable, T default) |
Returns the first element of the iterable, or the default value if empty. | Compare Iterable.iterator().next() , FluentIterable.first()
|
getLast(Iterable) |
Returns the last element of the iterable, or fails fast with a NoSuchElementException if it's empty. |
getLast(Iterable, T default) , FluentIterable.last()
|
elementsEqual(Iterable, Iterable) |
Returns true if the iterables have the same elements in the same order. | Compare List.equals(Object)
|
unmodifiableIterable(Iterable) |
Returns an unmodifiable view of the iterable. | Compare Collections.unmodifiableCollection(Collection)
|
limit(Iterable, int) |
Returns an Iterable returning at most the specified number of elements. |
FluentIterable.limit(int) |
getOnlyElement(Iterable) |
Returns the only element in Iterable . Fails fast if the iterable is empty or has multiple elements. |
getOnlyElement(Iterable, T default) |
Iterable<Integer> concatenated = Iterables.concat(
Ints.asList(1, 2, 3),
Ints.asList(4, 5, 6));
// concatenated has elements 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
String lastAdded = Iterables.getLast(myLinkedHashSet);
String theElement = Iterables.getOnlyElement(thisSetIsDefinitelyASingleton);
// if this set isn't a singleton, something is wrong!
Typically, collections support these operations naturally on other collections, but not on iterables.
Each of these operations delegates to the corresponding Collection
interface
method when the input is actually a Collection
. For example, if
Iterables.size
is passed a Collection
, it will call the Collection.size
method instead of walking through the iterator.
Method | Analogous Collection method |
FluentIterable equivalent |
---|---|---|
addAll(Collection addTo, Iterable toAdd) |
Collection.addAll(Collection) |
|
contains(Iterable, Object) |
Collection.contains(Object) |
FluentIterable.contains(Object) |
removeAll(Iterable removeFrom, Collection toRemove) |
Collection.removeAll(Collection) |
|
retainAll(Iterable removeFrom, Collection toRetain) |
Collection.retainAll(Collection) |
|
size(Iterable) |
Collection.size() |
FluentIterable.size() |
toArray(Iterable, Class) |
Collection.toArray(T[]) |
FluentIterable.toArray(Class) |
isEmpty(Iterable) |
Collection.isEmpty() |
FluentIterable.isEmpty() |
get(Iterable, int) |
List.get(int) |
FluentIterable.get(int) |
toString(Iterable) |
Collection.toString() |
FluentIterable.toString() |
Besides the methods covered above and in the functional idioms [article]
functional, FluentIterable
has a few convenient methods for copying
into an immutable collection:
Result Type | Method |
---|---|
ImmutableList |
toImmutableList() |
ImmutableSet |
toImmutableSet() |
ImmutableSortedSet |
toImmutableSortedSet(Comparator) |
In addition to static constructor methods and functional programming methods,
Lists
provides a number of valuable utility methods on List
objects.
Method | Description |
---|---|
partition(List, int) |
Returns a view of the underlying list, partitioned into chunks of the specified size. |
reverse(List) |
Returns a reversed view of the specified list. Note: if the list is immutable, consider ImmutableList.reverse() instead. |
List<Integer> countUp = Ints.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
List<Integer> countDown = Lists.reverse(theList); // {5, 4, 3, 2, 1}
List<List<Integer>> parts = Lists.partition(countUp, 2); // {{1, 2}, {3, 4}, {5}}
Lists
provides the following static factory methods:
Implementation | Factories |
---|---|
ArrayList |
basic, with elements, from Iterable , with exact capacity, with expected size, from Iterator
|
LinkedList |
basic, from Iterable
|
A seemingly simple task (finding the min or max of some elements) is complicated by the desire to minimize allocations, boxing, and APIs living in a variety of locations. The table below summarizes the best practices for this task.
Only the max()
solution is shown in the table below, but the same advice
applies for finding a min()
.
exactly 2 instances | more than 2 instances | |
---|---|---|
unboxed numeric | [Math.max(a, b) ] |
[Longs.max(a, b, c) ], |
: primitives : : [Ints.max(a, b, c) ], etc. : |
||
: [^unboxed primitives] : : : | ||
Comparable instances |
[`Comparators.max(a, | [`Collections.max(asList(a, |
: [^comparable instances] : b)] : b, c)) ] : |
||
using a custom | [`Comparators.max(a, | [`Collections.max(asList(a, |
: Comparator : b, comp)] : b, c), comp) ] : |
||
: [^custom comparator] : : : |
Note: We recommend static importing all of the methods involved in these
solutions to simplify your code (e.g., prefer max(asList(a, b, c))
over
Collections.max(Arrays.asList(a, b, c))
).
[^unboxed primitives]: e.g., long
, int
, double
, or float
[^comparable instances]: e.g., Duration
or String
; also includes boxed
primitives (e.g., Long
, Integer
, etc.)
[^custom comparator]: e.g., MyType
with myComparator
[Comparators.max(a, b)
]: https://guava.dev/releases/snapshot-jre/api/docs/com/google/common/collect/Comparators.html#max-T-T-
[Comparators.max(a, b, comp)
]: https://guava.dev/releases/snapshot-jre/api/docs/com/google/common/collect/Comparators.html#max-T-T-java.util.Comparator-
[Math.max(a, b)
]: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/lang/Math.html#max-long-long-
[Longs.max(a, b, c)
]: https://guava.dev/releases/snapshot-jre/api/docs/com/google/common/primitives/Longs.html#max-long...-
[Ints.max(a, b, c)
]: https://guava.dev/releases/snapshot-jre/api/docs/com/google/common/primitives/Ints.html#max-int...-
[Collections.max(asList(a, b, c))
]: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/Collections.html#max-java.util.Collection-
[Collections.max(asList(a, b, c), comp)
]: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/util/Collections.html#max-java.util.Collection-java.util.Comparator-
The Sets
utility class includes a number of spicy methods.
We provide a number of standard set-theoretic operations, implemented as views
over the argument sets. These return a SetView
, which can be used:
- as a
Set
directly, since it implements theSet
interface - by copying it into another mutable collection with
copyInto(Set)
- by making an immutable copy with
immutableCopy()
Method |
---|
union(Set, Set) |
intersection(Set, Set) |
difference(Set, Set) |
symmetricDifference(Set, Set) |
For example:
Set<String> wordsWithPrimeLength = ImmutableSet.of("one", "two", "three", "six", "seven", "eight");
Set<String> primes = ImmutableSet.of("two", "three", "five", "seven");
SetView<String> intersection = Sets.intersection(primes, wordsWithPrimeLength); // contains "two", "three", "seven"
// I can use intersection as a Set directly, but copying it can be more efficient if I use it a lot.
return intersection.immutableCopy();
Method | Description | See Also |
---|---|---|
cartesianProduct(List<Set>) |
Returns every possible list that can be obtained by choosing one element from each set. | cartesianProduct(Set...) |
powerSet(Set) |
Returns the set of subsets of the specified set. |
Set<String> animals = ImmutableSet.of("gerbil", "hamster");
Set<String> fruits = ImmutableSet.of("apple", "orange", "banana");
Set<List<String>> product = Sets.cartesianProduct(animals, fruits);
// {{"gerbil", "apple"}, {"gerbil", "orange"}, {"gerbil", "banana"},
// {"hamster", "apple"}, {"hamster", "orange"}, {"hamster", "banana"}}
Set<Set<String>> animalSets = Sets.powerSet(animals);
// {{}, {"gerbil"}, {"hamster"}, {"gerbil", "hamster"}}
Sets
provides the following static factory methods:
Implementation | Factories |
---|---|
HashSet |
basic, with elements, from Iterable , with expected size, from Iterator
|
LinkedHashSet |
basic, from Iterable , with expected size
|
TreeSet |
basic, with Comparator , from Iterable
|
Maps
has a number of cool utilities that deserve individual explanation.
Maps.uniqueIndex(Iterable, Function)
addresses the common case of having a
bunch of objects that each have some unique attribute, and wanting to be able to
look up those objects based on that attribute.
Let's say we have a bunch of strings that we know have unique lengths, and we want to be able to look up the string with some particular length.
ImmutableMap<Integer, String> stringsByIndex = Maps.uniqueIndex(strings, new Function<String, Integer> () {
public Integer apply(String string) {
return string.length();
}
});
If indices are not unique, see Multimaps.index
below.
Maps.difference(Map, Map)
allows you to compare all the differences between
two maps. It returns a MapDifference
object, which breaks down the Venn
diagram into:
Method | Description |
---|---|
entriesInCommon() |
The entries which are in both maps, with both matching keys and values. |
entriesDiffering() |
The entries with the same keys, but differing values. The values in this map are of type MapDifference.ValueDifference , which lets you look at the left and right values. |
entriesOnlyOnLeft() |
Returns the entries whose keys are in the left but not in the right map. |
entriesOnlyOnRight() |
Returns the entries whose keys are in the right but not in the left map. |
Map<String, Integer> left = ImmutableMap.of("a", 1, "b", 2, "c", 3);
Map<String, Integer> right = ImmutableMap.of("b", 2, "c", 4, "d", 5);
MapDifference<String, Integer> diff = Maps.difference(left, right);
diff.entriesInCommon(); // {"b" => 2}
diff.entriesDiffering(); // {"c" => (3, 4)}
diff.entriesOnlyOnLeft(); // {"a" => 1}
diff.entriesOnlyOnRight(); // {"d" => 5}
The Guava utilities on BiMap
live in the Maps
class, since a BiMap
is also
a Map
.
BiMap utility |
Corresponding Map utility |
---|---|
synchronizedBiMap(BiMap) |
Collections.synchronizedMap(Map) |
unmodifiableBiMap(BiMap) |
Collections.unmodifiableMap(Map) |
Maps
provides the following static factory methods.
Implementation | Factories |
---|---|
HashMap |
basic, from Map , with expected size
|
LinkedHashMap |
basic, from Map
|
TreeMap |
basic, from Comparator , from SortedMap
|
EnumMap |
from Class , from Map
|
ConcurrentMap |
basic |
IdentityHashMap |
basic |
Standard Collection
operations, such as containsAll
, ignore the count of
elements in the multiset, and only care about whether elements are in the
multiset at all, or not. Multisets
provides a number of operations that take
into account element multiplicities in multisets.
Method | Explanation | Difference from Collection method |
---|---|---|
containsOccurrences(Multiset sup, Multiset sub) |
Returns true if sub.count(o) <= super.count(o) for all o . |
Collection.containsAll ignores counts, and only tests whether elements are contained at all. |
removeOccurrences(Multiset removeFrom, Multiset toRemove) |
Removes one occurrence in removeFrom for each occurrence of an element in toRemove . |
Collection.removeAll removes all occurences of any element that occurs even once in toRemove . |
retainOccurrences(Multiset removeFrom, Multiset toRetain) |
Guarantees that removeFrom.count(o) <= toRetain.count(o) for all o . |
Collection.retainAll keeps all occurrences of elements that occur even once in toRetain . |
intersection(Multiset, Multiset) |
Returns a view of the intersection of two multisets; a nondestructive alternative to retainOccurrences . |
Has no analogue. |
Multiset<String> multiset1 = HashMultiset.create();
multiset1.add("a", 2);
Multiset<String> multiset2 = HashMultiset.create();
multiset2.add("a", 5);
multiset1.containsAll(multiset2); // returns true: all unique elements are contained,
// even though multiset1.count("a") == 2 < multiset2.count("a") == 5
Multisets.containsOccurrences(multiset1, multiset2); // returns false
multiset2.removeOccurrences(multiset1); // multiset2 now contains 3 occurrences of "a"
multiset2.removeAll(multiset1); // removes all occurrences of "a" from multiset2, even though multiset1.count("a") == 2
multiset2.isEmpty(); // returns true
Other utilities in Multisets
include:
Method | Description |
---|---|
copyHighestCountFirst(Multiset) |
Returns an immutable copy of the multiset that iterates over elements in descending frequency order. |
unmodifiableMultiset(Multiset) |
Returns an unmodifiable view of the multiset. |
unmodifiableSortedMultiset(SortedMultiset) |
Returns an unmodifiable view of the sorted multiset. |
Multiset<String> multiset = HashMultiset.create();
multiset.add("a", 3);
multiset.add("b", 5);
multiset.add("c", 1);
ImmutableMultiset<String> highestCountFirst = Multisets.copyHighestCountFirst(multiset);
// highestCountFirst, like its entrySet and elementSet, iterates over the elements in order {"b", "a", "c"}
Multimaps
provides a number of general utility operations that deserve
individual explanation.
The cousin to Maps.uniqueIndex
, Multimaps.index(Iterable, Function)
answers the case when you want to be able to look up all objects with some
particular attribute in common, which is not necessarily unique.
Let's say we want to group strings based on their length.
ImmutableSet<String> digits = ImmutableSet.of(
"zero", "one", "two", "three", "four",
"five", "six", "seven", "eight", "nine");
Function<String, Integer> lengthFunction = new Function<String, Integer>() {
public Integer apply(String string) {
return string.length();
}
};
ImmutableListMultimap<Integer, String> digitsByLength = Multimaps.index(digits, lengthFunction);
/*
* digitsByLength maps:
* 3 => {"one", "two", "six"}
* 4 => {"zero", "four", "five", "nine"}
* 5 => {"three", "seven", "eight"}
*/
Since Multimap
can map many keys to one value, and one key to many values, it
can be useful to invert a Multimap
. Guava provides invertFrom(Multimap toInvert, Multimap dest)
to let you do this, without choosing an
implementation for you.
NOTE: If you are using an ImmutableMultimap
, consider
ImmutableMultimap.inverse()
instead.
ArrayListMultimap<String, Integer> multimap = ArrayListMultimap.create();
multimap.putAll("b", Ints.asList(2, 4, 6));
multimap.putAll("a", Ints.asList(4, 2, 1));
multimap.putAll("c", Ints.asList(2, 5, 3));
TreeMultimap<Integer, String> inverse = Multimaps.invertFrom(multimap, TreeMultimap.<String, Integer> create());
// note that we choose the implementation, so if we use a TreeMultimap, we get results in order
/*
* inverse maps:
* 1 => {"a"}
* 2 => {"a", "b", "c"}
* 3 => {"c"}
* 4 => {"a", "b"}
* 5 => {"c"}
* 6 => {"b"}
*/
Need to use a Multimap
method on a Map
? forMap(Map)
views a Map
as a
SetMultimap
. This is particularly useful, for example, in combination with
Multimaps.invertFrom
.
Map<String, Integer> map = ImmutableMap.of("a", 1, "b", 1, "c", 2);
SetMultimap<String, Integer> multimap = Multimaps.forMap(map);
// multimap maps ["a" => {1}, "b" => {1}, "c" => {2}]
Multimap<Integer, String> inverse = Multimaps.invertFrom(multimap, HashMultimap.<Integer, String> create());
// inverse maps [1 => {"a", "b"}, 2 => {"c"}]
Multimaps
provides the traditional wrapper methods, as well as tools to get
custom Multimap
implementations based on Map
and Collection
implementations of your choice.
Multimap type | Unmodifiable | Synchronized | Custom |
---|---|---|---|
Multimap |
unmodifiableMultimap |
synchronizedMultimap |
newMultimap |
ListMultimap |
unmodifiableListMultimap |
synchronizedListMultimap |
newListMultimap |
SetMultimap |
unmodifiableSetMultimap |
synchronizedSetMultimap |
newSetMultimap |
SortedSetMultimap |
unmodifiableSortedSetMultimap |
synchronizedSortedSetMultimap |
newSortedSetMultimap |
The custom Multimap
implementations let you specify a particular
implementation that should be used in the returned Multimap
. Caveats include:
- The multimap assumes complete ownership over of map and the lists returned by factory. Those objects should not be manually updated, they should be empty when provided, and they should not use soft, weak, or phantom references.
-
No guarantees are made on what the contents of the
Map
will look like after you modify theMultimap
. - The multimap is not threadsafe when any concurrent operations update the
multimap, even if map and the instances generated by factory are. Concurrent
read operations will work correctly, though. Work around this with the
synchronized
wrappers if necessary. - The multimap is serializable if map, factory, the lists generated by factory, and the multimap contents are all serializable.
- The collections returned by
Multimap.get(key)
are not of the same type as the collections returned by yourSupplier
, though if you supplier returnsRandomAccess
lists, the lists returned byMultimap.get(key)
will also be random access.
Note that the custom Multimap
methods expect a Supplier
argument to generate
fresh new collections. Here is an example of writing a ListMultimap
backed by
a TreeMap
mapping to LinkedList
.
ListMultimap<String, Integer> myMultimap = Multimaps.newListMultimap(
Maps.<String, Collection<Integer>>newTreeMap(),
new Supplier<LinkedList<Integer>>() {
public LinkedList<Integer> get() {
return Lists.newLinkedList();
}
});
The Tables
class provides a few handy utilities.
Comparable to the Multimaps.newXXXMultimap(Map, Supplier)
utilities,
Tables.newCustomTable(Map, Supplier<Map>)
allows you to specify a Table
implementation using whatever row or column map you like.
// use LinkedHashMaps instead of HashMaps
Table<String, Character, Integer> table = Tables.newCustomTable(
Maps.<String, Map<Character, Integer>>newLinkedHashMap(),
new Supplier<Map<Character, Integer>> () {
public Map<Character, Integer> get() {
return Maps.newLinkedHashMap();
}
});
The transpose(Table<R, C, V>)
method allows you to view a Table<R, C, V>
as a Table<C, R, V>
.
These are the familiar unmodifiability wrappers you know and love. Consider,
however, using ImmutableTable
instead in most cases.
- Introduction
- Basic Utilities
- Collections
- Graphs
- Caches
- Functional Idioms
- Concurrency
- Strings
- Networking
- Primitives
- Ranges
- I/O
- Hashing
- EventBus
- Math
- Reflection
- Releases
- Tips
- Glossary
- Mailing List
- Stack Overflow
- Android Overview
- Footprint of JDK/Guava data structures