The Stream API is a feature introduced in Java 8 that allows for processing collections of objects in a functional and efficient way. A stream in Java is a sequence of objects that supports various methods which can be pipelined to produce the desired result. Some key features of the Stream API include:
- Functional operations: The Stream API allows for operations like filtering, mapping, reducing, and sorting.
- Non-destructive: Streams dont change the original data structure, they only provide the result as per the pipelined methods.
- Sequence of elements: A stream represents a sequence of elements and supports different operations like filter, sort, map, and collect.
To create a Java Stream, one can use the .stream()
method on a collection. The Stream API provides a collect()
method for processing on the stream interface, which can be used to obtain a new list of elements based on filtering and mapping. The Stream API also allows for iterating, filtering, and passing a limit to fix the iteration.
In summary, the Stream API is a powerful tool in Java that allows for functional and efficient processing of collections of objects.