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

Some of the answers above are similar but not the same so posting it as a new answer.

Solution:
1. Use HashSet to hold elements which need to be removed
2. Add all elements of list1 to HashSet
3. iterate list2 and remove elements from a HashSet which are present in list2 ==> which are present in both list1 and list2
4. Now iterate over HashSet and remove elements from list1(since we have added all elements of list1 to set), finally, list1 has all common elements
Note: We can add all elements of list2 and in a 3rd iteration, we should remove elements from list2.

Time complexity: O(n)
Space Complexity: O(n)

Code:

import com.sun.tools.javac.util.Assert;
import org.apache.commons.collections4.CollectionUtils;

    List<Integer> list1 = new ArrayList<>();
    list1.add(1);
    list1.add(2);
    list1.add(3);
    list1.add(4);
    list1.add(5);

    List<Integer> list2 = new ArrayList<>();
    list2.add(1);
    list2.add(3);
    list2.add(5);
    list2.add(7);
    Set<Integer> toBeRemoveFromList1 = new HashSet<>(list1);
    System.out.println("list1:" + list1);
    System.out.println("list2:" + list2);
    for (Integer n : list2) {
        if (toBeRemoveFromList1.contains(n)) {
            toBeRemoveFromList1.remove(n);
        }
    }
    System.out.println("toBeRemoveFromList1:" + toBeRemoveFromList1);
    for (Integer n : toBeRemoveFromList1) {
        list1.remove(n);
    }
    System.out.println("list1:" + list1);
    System.out.println("collectionUtils:" + CollectionUtils.intersection(list1, list2));
    Assert.check(CollectionUtils.intersection(list1, list2).containsAll(list1));

output:

list1:[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
list2:[1, 3, 5, 7]
toBeRemoveFromList1:[2, 4]
list1:[1, 3, 5]
collectionUtils:[1, 3, 5]

Answer 2

            List<String> lista =new ArrayList<String>();
            List<String> listb =new ArrayList<String>();

            lista.add("Isabella");
            lista.add("Angelina");
            lista.add("Pille");
            lista.add("Hazem");

            listb.add("Isabella");
            listb.add("Angelina");
            listb.add("Bianca");

            // Create an aplusb list which will contain both list (list1 and list2) in which common element will occur twice 
            List<String> listapluslistb =new ArrayList<String>(lista);    
            listapluslistb.addAll(listb);

            // Create an aunionb set which will contain both list (list1 and list2) in which common element will occur once
            Set<String> listaunionlistb =new HashSet<String>(lista);
            listaunionlistb.addAll(listb);

            for(String s:listaunionlistb)
            {
                listapluslistb.remove(s);
            }
            System.out.println(listapluslistb);

Answer 3

Why reinvent the wheel? Use Commons Collections:

CollectionUtils.intersection(java.util.Collection a, java.util.Collection b)

Answer 4

public <T> List<T> getIntersectOfCollections(Collection<T> first, Collection<T> second) {
        return first.stream()
                .filter(second::contains)
                .collect(Collectors.toList());
    }

Answer 5

    // Create two collections:
    LinkedList<String> listA =  new LinkedList<String>();
    ArrayList<String> listB =  new ArrayList<String>();

    // Add some elements to listA:
    listA.add("A");
    listA.add("B");
    listA.add("C");
    listA.add("D");

    // Add some elements to listB:
    listB.add("A");
    listB.add("B");
    listB.add("C");

    // use 

    List<String> common = new ArrayList<String>(listA);
    // use common.retainAll

    common.retainAll(listB);

    System.out.println("The common collection is : " + common);

Answer 6

Below code Remove common elements in the list

List<String> result =  list1.stream().filter(item-> !list2.contains(item)).collect(Collectors.toList());

Retrieve common elements

List<String> result = list1.stream()
                .distinct()
                .filter(list::contains)
                .collect(Collectors.toList());