How can I turn a List of Lists into a List in Java 8?

Answer 1

Method to convert a List<List> to List :

listOfLists.stream().flatMap(List::stream).collect(Collectors.toList());

See this example:

public class Example {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        List<List<String>> listOfLists = Collections.singletonList(Arrays.asList("a", "b", "v"));
        List<String> list = listOfLists.stream().flatMap(List::stream).collect(Collectors.toList());

        System.out.println("listOfLists => " + listOfLists);
        System.out.println("list => " + list);
    }

}       

It prints:

listOfLists => [[a, b, c]]
list => [a, b, c]

Answer 2

We can use flatmap for this, please refer below code :

 List<Integer> i1= Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4);
 List<Integer> i2= Arrays.asList(5, 6, 7, 8);

 List<List<Integer>> ii= Arrays.asList(i1, i2);
 System.out.println("List<List<Integer>>"+ii);
 List<Integer> flat=ii.stream().flatMap(l-> l.stream()).collect(Collectors.toList());
 System.out.println("Flattened to List<Integer>"+flat);

Answer 3

An expansion on Eran's answer that was the top answer, if you have a bunch of layers of lists, you can keep flatmapping them.

This also comes with a handy way of filtering as you go down the layers if needed as well.

So for example:

List<List<List<List<List<List<Object>>>>>> multiLayeredList = ...

List<Object> objectList = multiLayeredList
    .stream()
    .flatmap(someList1 -> someList1
        .stream()
        .filter(...Optional...))
    .flatmap(someList2 -> someList2
        .stream()
        .filter(...Optional...))
    .flatmap(someList3 -> someList3
        .stream()
        .filter(...Optional...))
    ...
    .collect(Collectors.toList())

This is would be similar in SQL to having SELECT statements within SELECT statements.

Answer 4

flatmap is better but there are other ways to achieve the same

List<List<Object>> listOfList = ... // fill

List<Object> collect = 
      listOfList.stream()
                .collect(ArrayList::new, List::addAll, List::addAll);

Answer 5

You can use flatMap to flatten the internal lists (after converting them to Streams) into a single Stream, and then collect the result into a list:

List<List<Object>> list = ...
List<Object> flat = 
    list.stream()
        .flatMap(List::stream)
        .collect(Collectors.toList());

Answer 6

I just want to explain one more scenario like List<Documents>, this list contains a few more lists of other documents like List<Excel>, List<Word>, List<PowerPoint>. So the structure is

class A {
  List<Documents> documentList;
}

class Documents {
  List<Excel> excels;
  List<Word> words;
  List<PowerPoint> ppt;
}

Now if you want to iterate Excel only from documents then do something like below..

So the code would be

 List<Documents> documentList = new A().getDocumentList();

 //check documentList as not null

 Optional<Excel> excelOptional = documentList.stream()
                         .map(doc -> doc.getExcel())
                         .flatMap(List::stream).findFirst();
 if(excelOptional.isPresent()){
   Excel exl = optionalExcel.get();
   // now get the value what you want.
 }

I hope this can solve someone's issue while coding...