What is the equivalent of of Scala's great foldLeft in Java 8?
I was tempted to think it was reduce, but reduce has to return something of identical type to what it reduces on.
Example:
import java.util.List;
public class Foo {
// this method works pretty well
public int sum(List<Integer> numbers) {
return numbers.stream()
.reduce(0, (acc, n) -> (acc + n));
}
// this method makes the file not compile
public String concatenate(List<Character> chars) {
return chars.stream()
.reduce(new StringBuilder(""), (acc, c) -> acc.append(c)).toString();
}
}
The problem in the code above is the accumulator: new StringBuilder("")
Thus, could anyone point me to the proper equivalent of the foldLeft/fix my code?
Update:
Here is initial attempt to get your code fixed:
public static String concatenate(List<Character> chars) {
return chars
.stream()
.reduce(new StringBuilder(),
StringBuilder::append,
StringBuilder::append).toString();
}
It uses the following reduce method:
<U> U reduce(U identity,
BiFunction<U, ? super T, U> accumulator,
BinaryOperator<U> combiner);
It may sound confusing but if you look at the javadocs there is a nice explanation that may help you quickly grasp the details. The reduction is equivalent to the following code:
U result = identity;
for (T element : this stream)
result = accumulator.apply(result, element)
return result;
For a more in-depth explanation please check this source.
This usage is not correct though because it violates the contract of reduce which states that the accumulator should be an associative, non-interfering, stateless function for incorporating an additional element into a result. In other words since the identity is mutable the result will be broken in case of parallel execution.
As pointed in the comments below a correct option is using the reduction as follows:
return chars.stream().collect(
StringBuilder::new,
StringBuilder::append,
StringBuilder::append).toString();
The supplier StringBuilder::new will be used to create reusable containers which will be later combined.