How to use the Stream API in Java 8?
Java 8's Stream API provides a powerful and expressive way to handle sequences of elements in a functional style. 1. Streams can be created from collections, arrays, Stream.of() or builders; 2. Intermediate operations such as filter, map, sorted, etc. are evaluated lazily and return new streams; 3. Terminal operations such as forEach, collect, reduce trigger execution and produce results; 4. Example: Convert elements with a length greater than 4 in the name list to uppercase and sort, complete through chain calls; 5. Support parallel streams to improve performance.

The Stream API in Java 8 provides a powerful and expressive way to process sequences of elements, such as collections, arrays, or I/O operations, in a functional style. It allows you to perform operations like filtering, mapping, and reducing data with clean, readable code.
Creating a Stream
You can create a stream from various sources:
- From a collection: list.stream()
- From an array: Arrays.stream(array)
- Using Stream.of() : Stream.of(1, 2, 3)
- Using builder: Stream.
builder().add(1).add(2).build()
Intermediate Operations
These operations return a new stream and are lazily evaluated — they don't execute until a terminal operation is called.
- filter(Predicate) : Keeps elements that match the condition. Example: stream.filter(x -> x > 5)
- map(Function) : Transforms each element. Example: stream.map(String::toUpperCase)
- flatMap(Function) : Flattens streams of streams. Example: stream.flatMap(list -> list.stream())
- sorted() : Sorts elements (natural order or custom comparator)
- distinct() , limit(n) , skip(n) : Handle uniqueness and slicing
Terminal Operations
These trigger the processing and produce a result or side effect.
- forEach(Consumer) : Performs action on each element
- collect(Collector) : Gathers results into a list, set, map, etc. Example: stream.collect(Collectors.toList())
- reduce() : Combines elements into a single value Example: stream.reduce(0, (a,b) -> ab)
- count() : Returns number of elements
- findFirst() , anyMatch(Predicate) , etc.: Return optional or boolean
Practical Example
Suppose you have a list of names and want to get uppercase names longer than 4 characters, sorted:
List.filter(name -> name.length() > 4)
.map(String::toUpperCase)
.sorted()
.collect(Collectors.toList());
Basically just chain intermediate ops and end with a terminal one. Streams make data processing concise and less error-prone compared to loops. They also support parallel execution via parallelStream() when performance matters.
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