1. overview

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to split a List into multiple sublists of a given size.

For relatively simple operations, surprisingly, there is no support in the standard Java collection API. Fortunately, Guava and Apache Commons Collections The operations are implemented in a similar way.

 

2. Partitioning List s with Guava

Guava facilitates splitting lists into sublists of specified sizes - via Lists.partition operation:

@Test
public void givenList_whenParitioningIntoNSublists_thenCorrect() {
    List<Integer> intList = Lists.newArrayList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8);
    List<List<Integer>> subSets = Lists.partition(intList, 3);
 
    List<Integer> lastPartition = subSets.get(2);
    List<Integer> expectedLastPartition = Lists.<Integer> newArrayList(7, 8);
    assertThat(subSets.size(), equalTo(3));
    assertThat(lastPartition, equalTo(expectedLastPartition));
}

3. Partitioning Collection s with Guava

Guava can also partition Collection s:

@Test
public void givenCollection_whenParitioningIntoNSublists_thenCorrect() {
    Collection<Integer> intCollection = Lists.newArrayList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8);
 
    Iterable<List<Integer>> subSets = Iterables.partition(intCollection, 3);
 
    List<Integer> firstPartition = subSets.iterator().next();
    List<Integer> expectedLastPartition = Lists.<Integer> newArrayList(1, 2, 3);
    assertThat(firstPartition, equalTo(expectedLastPartition));
}

@Test
public void givenListPartitioned_whenOriginalListIsModified_thenPartitionsChangeAsWell() {
    // Given
    List<Integer> intList = Lists.newArrayList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8);
    List<List<Integer>> subSets = Lists.partition(intList, 3);
 
    // When
    intList.add(9);
 
    // Then
    List<Integer> lastPartition = subSets.get(2);
    List<Integer> expectedLastPartition = Lists.<Integer> newArrayList(7, 8, 9);
    assertThat(lastPartition, equalTo(expectedLastPartition));
}

 

4. Partitioning List s with Apache Commons Collections

Latest version of Apache Commons Collections More recently Partitioning support for List:

@Test
public void givenList_whenParitioningIntoNSublists_thenCorrect() {
    List<Integer> intList = Lists.newArrayList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8);
    List<List<Integer>> subSets = ListUtils.partition(intList, 3);
 
    List<Integer> lastPartition = subSets.get(2);
    List<Integer> expectedLastPartition = Lists.<Integer> newArrayList(7, 8);
    assertThat(subSets.size(), equalTo(3));
    assertThat(lastPartition, equalTo(expectedLastPartition));
}

5. Partitioning List s with Java 8

Now let's see how Java 8 can be used to partition lists.

5.1. Collectors partitioningBy

We can use Collectors.partitioningBy () to split the list into two sublists - as follows:

@Test
public void givenList_whenParitioningIntoSublistsUsingPartitionBy_thenCorrect() {
    List<Integer> intList = Lists.newArrayList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8);
 
    Map<Boolean, List<Integer>> groups = 
      intList.stream().collect(Collectors.partitioningBy(s -> s > 6));
    List<List<Integer>> subSets = new ArrayList<List<Integer>>(groups.values());
 
    List<Integer> lastPartition = subSets.get(1);
    List<Integer> expectedLastPartition = Lists.<Integer> newArrayList(7, 8);
    assertThat(subSets.size(), equalTo(2));
    assertThat(lastPartition, equalTo(expectedLastPartition));
}

5.2.  Collectors groupingBy

We can also use Collectors.groupingBy () to split the list into multiple partitions:

@Test
public final void givenList_whenParitioningIntoNSublistsUsingGroupingBy_thenCorrect() {
    List<Integer> intList = Lists.newArrayList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8);
 
    Map<Integer, List<Integer>> groups = 
      intList.stream().collect(Collectors.groupingBy(s -> (s - 1) / 3));
    List<List<Integer>> subSets = new ArrayList<List<Integer>>(groups.values());
 
    List<Integer> lastPartition = subSets.get(2);
    List<Integer> expectedLastPartition = Lists.<Integer> newArrayList(7, 8);
    assertThat(subSets.size(), equalTo(3));
    assertThat(lastPartition, equalTo(expectedLastPartition));
}

Note: Just like Collectors.partitioningBy () - the generated partitions are not affected by changes in the main List.

5.3. Split lists by separators

We can also use Java 8 to split lists by separator:

@Test
public void givenList_whenSplittingBySeparator_thenCorrect() {
    List<Integer> intList = Lists.newArrayList(1, 2, 3, 0, 4, 5, 6, 0, 7, 8);
 
    int[] indexes = 
      Stream.of(IntStream.of(-1), IntStream.range(0, intList.size())
      .filter(i -> intList.get(i) == 0), IntStream.of(intList.size()))
      .flatMapToInt(s -> s).toArray();
    List<List<Integer>> subSets = 
      IntStream.range(0, indexes.length - 1)
               .mapToObj(i -> intList.subList(indexes[i] + 1, indexes[i + 1]))
               .collect(Collectors.toList());
 
    List<Integer> lastPartition = subSets.get(2);
    List<Integer> expectedLastPartition = Lists.<Integer> newArrayList(7, 8);
    assertThat(subSets.size(), equalTo(3));
    assertThat(lastPartition, equalTo(expectedLastPartition));
}

Note: We use "0" as the delimiter - we first get the index of all "0" elements in the List, and then we split the List on those indexes.

Six, conclusion

The solution described here uses additional libraries -- Guava or Apache Commons Collections libraries. Both are very lightweight and generally very useful, so it makes sense to use one of them in the classpath; however, if this is not an option- Here only display A Java solution.

All of these examples and code snippets can be implemented Find it on GitHub - This is a Maven-based project, so it should be easy to import and run.