Intersection and union of ArrayLists in Java

Question

Are there any methods to do so? I was looking but couldn\'t find any.

Another question: I need these methods so I can filter files. Some are AND filter

Answer 1

You can use the methods:

CollectionUtils.containsAny and CollectionUtils.containsAll

from Apache Commons.

Answer 2

Collection (so ArrayList also) have:

col.retainAll(otherCol) // for intersection
col.addAll(otherCol) // for union

Use a List implementation if you accept repetitions, a Set implementation if you don't:

Collection<String> col1 = new ArrayList<String>(); // {a, b, c}
// Collection<String> col1 = new TreeSet<String>();
col1.add("a");
col1.add("b");
col1.add("c");

Collection<String> col2 = new ArrayList<String>(); // {b, c, d, e}
// Collection<String> col2 = new TreeSet<String>();
col2.add("b");
col2.add("c");
col2.add("d");
col2.add("e");

col1.addAll(col2);
System.out.println(col1); 
//output for ArrayList: [a, b, c, b, c, d, e]
//output for TreeSet: [a, b, c, d, e]

Answer 3

In Java 8, I use simple helper methods like this:

public static <T> Collection<T> getIntersection(Collection<T> coll1, Collection<T> coll2){
    return Stream.concat(coll1.stream(), coll2.stream())
            .filter(coll1::contains)
            .filter(coll2::contains)
            .collect(Collectors.toSet());
}

public static <T> Collection<T> getMinus(Collection<T> coll1, Collection<T> coll2){
    return coll1.stream().filter(not(coll2::contains)).collect(Collectors.toSet());
}

public static <T> Predicate<T> not(Predicate<T> t) {
    return t.negate();
}

Answer 4

If you had your data in Sets you could use Guava's Sets class.

Answer 5

You can use commons-collections4 CollectionUtils

Collection<Integer> collection1 = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8);
Collection<Integer> collection2 = Arrays.asList(2, 3, 4, 6, 8);

Collection<Integer> intersection = CollectionUtils.intersection(collection1, collection2);
System.out.println(intersection); // [2, 4, 8]

Collection<Integer> union = CollectionUtils.union(collection1, collection2);
System.out.println(union); // [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]

Collection<Integer> subtract = CollectionUtils.subtract(collection1, collection2);
System.out.println(subtract); // [1, 5, 7]

Answer 6

• retainAll will modify your list
• Guava doesn't have APIs for List (only for set)

I found ListUtils very useful for this use case.

Use ListUtils from org.apache.commons.collections if you do not want to modify existing list.

ListUtils.intersection(list1, list2)