Common elements in two lists

Question

I have two ArrayList objects with three integers each. I want to find a way to return the common elements of the two lists. Has anybody an idea how I can achiev

Answer 1

consider two list L1 ans L2

Using Java8 we can easily find it out

L1.stream().filter(L2::contains).collect(Collectors.toList())

Answer 2

public static <T> List<T> getCommonElements(
            java.util.Collection<T> a,
            java.util.Collection<T> b
            ) {
        if(a==null && b==null) return new ArrayList<>();
        if(a!=null && a.size()==0) return new ArrayList<>(b);           
        if(b!=null && b.size()==0) return new ArrayList<>(a);
        
        Set<T> set= a instanceof HashSet?(HashSet<T>)a:new HashSet<>(a);
        return b.stream().filter(set::contains).collect(Collectors.toList());
    }

For better time performance, please use HashSet (O(1) look up) instead of List(O(n) look ups)

Time complexity- O(b) Space Complexity- O(a)

Answer 3

Using Java 8's Stream.filter() method in combination with List.contains():

import static java.util.Arrays.asList;
import static java.util.stream.Collectors.toList;

/* ... */

List<Integer> list1 = asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5);
List<Integer> list2 = asList(1, 3, 5, 7, 9);

List<Integer> common = list1.stream().filter(list2::contains).collect(toList());

Answer 4

In case you want to do it yourself..

List<Integer> commons = new ArrayList<Integer>();

for (Integer igr : group1) {
    if (group2.contains(igr)) {
        commons.add(igr);
    }
}

System.out.println("Common elements are :: -");
for (Integer igr : commons) {
    System.out.println(" "+igr);
}

Answer 5

You can use set intersection operations with your ArrayList objects.

Something like this:

List<Integer> l1 = new ArrayList<Integer>();

l1.add(1);
l1.add(2);
l1.add(3);

List<Integer> l2= new ArrayList<Integer>();
l2.add(4);
l2.add(2);
l2.add(3);

System.out.println("l1 == "+l1);
System.out.println("l2 == "+l2);

List<Integer> l3 = new ArrayList<Integer>(l2);
l3.retainAll(l1);

    System.out.println("l3 == "+l3);

Now, l3 should have only common elements between l1 and l2.

CONSOLE OUTPUT
l1 == [1, 2, 3]
l2 == [4, 2, 3]
l3 == [2, 3]

Answer 6

You can get the common elements between two lists using the method "retainAll". This method will remove all unmatched elements from the list to which it applies.

Ex.: list.retainAll(list1);

In this case from the list, all the elements which are not in list1 will be removed and only those will be remaining which are common between list and list1.

List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<>();
list.add(10);
list.add(13);
list.add(12);
list.add(11);

List<Integer> list1 = new ArrayList<>();
list1.add(10);
list1.add(113);
list1.add(112);
list1.add(111);
//before retainAll
System.out.println(list);
System.out.println(list1);
//applying retainAll on list
list.retainAll(list1);
//After retainAll
System.out.println("list::"+list);
System.out.println("list1::"+list1);

Output:

[10, 13, 12, 11]
[10, 113, 112, 111]
list::[10]
list1::[10, 113, 112, 111]

NOTE: After retainAll applied on the list, the list contains common element between list and list1.