Java collection/map apply method equivalent?

Question

I would like to apply a function to a Java collection, in this particular case a map. Is there a nice way to do this? I have a map and would like to just run trim() on all t

Answer 1

I have come up with a "Mapper" class

public static abstract class Mapper<FromClass, ToClass> {

    private Collection<FromClass> source;

    // Mapping methods
    public abstract ToClass map(FromClass source);

    // Constructors
    public Mapper(Collection<FromClass> source) {
        this.source = source;
    }   
    public Mapper(FromClass ... source) {
        this.source = Arrays.asList(source);
    }   

    // Apply map on every item
    public Collection<ToClass> apply() {
        ArrayList<ToClass> result = new ArrayList<ToClass>();
        for (FromClass item : this.source) {
            result.add(this.map(item));
        }
        return result;
    }
}

That I use like that :

Collection<Loader> loaders = new Mapper<File, Loader>(files) {
    @Override public Loader map(File source) {
        return new Loader(source);
    }           
}.apply();

Answer 2

Whether you can modify your collection in-place or not depends on the class of the objects in the collection.

If those objects are immutable (which Strings are) then you can't just take the items from the collection and modify them - instead you'll need to iterate over the collection, call the relevant function, and then put the resulting value back.