Introduction

In the first part of this tutorial on the Java 8 Stream API, we covered what streams are and
some of their most common operations.

Without further ado, let's continue with the methods used to program streams in a functional
style. After that, we'll take a look at parallel streams.

Map
map() is used to transform the value or the type of the elements of a stream:

<R> Stream<R> map(Function<? super T,? extends R> mapper)

IntStream mapToInt(ToIntFunction<? super T> mapper)
LongStream mapToLong(ToLongFunction<? super T> mapper)
DoubleStream mapToDouble(ToDoubleFunction<? super T> mapper)

As you can see, map() takes a Function to convert the elements of a stream of type T to type
R, returning a stream of that type R:

Stream.of('a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e')

.map(c -> (int)c)
.forEach(i -> System.out.format("%d ", i));

The output:

197 98 99 100 101

There are versions for transforming to primitive types. For example:

IntStream.of(100, 110, 120, 130 ,140)

.mapToDouble(i -> i/3.0)
.forEach(i -> System.out.format("%.2f ", i));

Will output:

33.33 36.67 40.00 43.33 46.67

FlatMap
flatMap() is used to flatten (or combine) the elements of a stream into one (new) stream:

<R> Stream<R> flatMap(Function<? super T,

? extends Stream<? extends R>> mapper)
DoubleStream flatMapToDouble(Function<? super T,
? extends DoubleStream> mapper)
IntStream flatMapToInt(Function<? super T,
? extends IntStream> mapper)
LongStream flatMapToLong(Function<? super T,
? extends LongStream> mapper)

From its signature (and the signature of the primitive versions) we can see that, in contrast to
map() which returns a single value, flatMap() must return a Stream. If flatMap() maps to
null, the return value will be an empty stream, not null itself.

Let's see how this works. Suppose we have a stream comprising lists of characters:

List<Character> aToD = Arrays.asList('a', 'b', 'c', 'd');

List<Character> eToG = Arrays.asList('e', 'f', 'g');
Stream<List<Character>> stream = Stream.of(aToD, eToG);

We want to convert all the characters to their int representation. Notice through the code
below that we we can't use map() anymore; c represents an object of type List<Character>,
not Character:

stream .map(c -> (int)c)

Instead, we need to get the elements of the lists into one stream and then convert each
character to an int. Fortunately, we have flatMap() to combine the list elements into a single
Stream object:

stream
.flatMap(l -> l.stream())
.map(c -> (int)c)
.forEach(i -> System.out.format("%d ", i));

This outputs the following:

97 98 99 100 101 102 103

flatMap() returns a stream while map() returns an element.

Using peek() (which just executes the provided expression and returns a new stream with the
same elements of the original one) after flatMap() may clarify how the elements are
processed:

stream
.flatMap(l -> l.stream())
.peek(System.out::print)
.map(c -> (int)c)
.forEach(i -> System.out.format("%d ", i));
As you can see from the output, the stream returned from flatMap() is passed through the
pipeline, as if we were working with a stream of single elements rather than a stream of lists
of elements:

a97 b98 c99 d100 e101 f102 g103

This way, with flatMap() you can convert a Stream<List<Object>> to Stream<Object>.

However, the important concept is that this method returns a stream and not a single element
(as map() does).

Reduction
A reduction is an operation that takes many elements and combines them to reduce them into
a single value or object. Reduction is done by applying an operation multiple times.

Some examples of reductions include summing N elements, finding the maximum element of
N numbers, or counting elements.

In the following example, we use a for loop to reduce an array of numbers to their sum:

int[] numbers = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6};

int sum = 0;
for(int n : numbers) {
sum += n;
}

java

Of course, making reductions with streams instead of loops has benefits, such as easier
parallelization and improved readability.

The Stream interface has two methods for reduction:

1
2
collect()
reduce()

We can implement reductions with both of these methods, but collect() helps us implement
a type of reduction called mutable reduction, where a container (like a Collection) is used
to accumulate the result of the operation.

The other reduction operation, reduce(), has three versions:

Optional<T> reduce(BinaryOperator<T> accumulator)

T reduce(T identity,
BinaryOperator<T> accumulator)
<U> U reduce(U identity,
BiFunction<U,? super T,U> accumulator,
BinaryOperator<U> combiner)

Remember that a BinaryOperator<T> is equivalent to a BiFunction<T, T, T>, where the

two arguments and the return type are all of the same types.

Let's start with the version that takes one argument. This is equivalent to:

boolean elementsFound = false;

T result = null;
for (T element : stream) {
if (!elementsFound) {
elementsFound = true;
result = element;
} else {
result = accumulator.apply(result, element);
}
return elementsFound ? Optional.of(result)
: Optional.empty();

This code just applies a function for each element, accumulating the result and returning an
Optional wrapping that result, or an empty Optional if there were no elements.

Let's see a concrete example. We just see how a sum is a reduce operation:

int[] numbers = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6};

int sum = 0;
for(int n : numbers) {
sum += n;
}

Here, the accumulator operation is:

sum += n; //or sum = sum + n

This translates to:

OptionalInt total = IntStream.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

.reduce( (sum, n) -> sum + n );

Notice how the primitive version of Stream uses the primitive version of Optional.

This is what happens step by step:

 1. An internal variable that accumulates the result is set to the first element of a stream
(1).
2. This accumulator and the second element of the stream (2) are passed as arguments to
the BinaryOperator represented by the lambda expression (sum, n) -> sum + x.
3. The result (3) is assigned to the accumulator.
4. The accumulator (3) and the third element of the stream (3) are passed as arguments
to the BinaryOperator.
5. The result (6) is assigned to the accumulator.
6. Steps 4 and 5 are repeated for the next elements of the stream until there are no more
elements.

However, what if you need to have an initial value? For cases like that, we have the version
that takes two arguments:

T reduce(T identity, BinaryOperator<T> accumulator)

java

The first argument is the initial value, and it is called the identity because, strictly speaking,
this value must be an identity for the accumulator function. In other words, for each value v,
accumulator.apply(identity, v) must be equal to v.

This version of reduce() is equivalent to:

T result = identity;
for (T element : stream) {
result = accumulator.apply(result, element);
}
return result;

Notice that this version does not return an Optional object because if the stream empty, the
identity value is returned.

For example, the sum example can be rewritten as:

int total = IntStream.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

.reduce( 0,
(sum, n) -> sum + n ); // 21

Or using a different initial value:

int total = IntStream.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

.reduce( 4,
(sum, n) -> sum + n ); // 25

However, notice that in the example above, the first value cannot be considered an identity
because, for instance, 4 + 1 is not equal to 4.
This can bring some problems when working with parallel streams, which we'll review in a
few moments.

Now, notice that with these versions, you take elements of type T and return a reduced value
of type T as well.

However, if you want to return a reduced value of a different type, you have to use the three
arguments version of reduce():

<U> U reduce(U identity,

BiFunction<U,? super T, U> accumulator,
BinaryOperator<U> combiner)

This is equivalent to using:

U result = identity;
for (T element : stream) {
result = accumulator.apply(result, element)
}
return result;

Consider for example that we want to get the sum of the length of all strings of a stream, so
we take strings (type T), and we want an integer result (type U).

In that case, we use reduce() like this:

int length =
Stream.of("Parallel", "streams", "are", "great")
.reduce(0,
(accumInt, str) ->
accumInt + str.length(), //accumulator
(accumInt1, accumInt2) ->
accumInt1 + accumInt2);//combiner

We can make it clearer by adding the argument types:

int length =
Stream.of("Parallel", "streams", "are", "great")
.reduce(0,
(Integer accumInt, String str) ->
accumInt + str.length(), //accumulator
(Integer accumInt1, Integer accumInt2) ->
accumInt1 + accumInt2);//combiner
As the accumulator function adds a mapping (transformation) step to the accumulator
function, this version of the reduce() can be written as a combination of map() and the other
versions of the reduce() method (you may know this as the map-reduce pattern):

int length =
Stream.of("Parallel", "streams", "are", "great")
.mapToInt(s -> s.length())
.reduce(0,
(sum, strLength) ->
sum + strLength);

Or simply:

int length = Stream.of("Parallel", "streams", "are", "great")

.mapToInt(s -> s.length())
.sum();

In fact, the calculation operations that we learned about in the first part are implemented as
reduce operations under the hood:

average
count
max
min
sum

Also, notice that if we return a value of the same type, the combiner function is no longer
necessary (it turns out that this function is the same as the accumulator function). So, in this
case, it's better to use the two argument version.

It's recommended to use the three version reduce() method when:

 Working with parallel streams

 Having one function as a mapper and accumulator is more efficient than having
separate mapping and reduction functions.

On the other hand, collect() has two versions:

<R,A> R collect(Collector<? super T,A,R> collector)

<R> R collect(Supplier<R> supplier,

BiConsumer<R,? super T> accumulator,
BiConsumer<R,R> combiner)
The first version uses predefined collectors from the Collectors class while the second one
allows you to create your own collectors. Primitive streams (like IntStream) only have this
last version of collect().

Remember that collect() performs a mutable reduction on the elements of a stream, which
means that it uses a mutable object for accumulating, like a Collection or a
StringBuilder. In contrast, reduce() combines two elements to produce a new one and
represents an immutable reduction.

However, let's start with the version that takes three arguments, as it's similar to the reduce()
version that also takes three arguments.

As you can see from its signature, first, it takes a Supplier that returns the object that will be
used and returned as a container (accumulator).

The second parameter is an accumulator function, which takes the container and the element
to be added to it.

The third parameter is the combiner function, which merges the intermediate results into the
final one (useful when working with parallel streams).

This version of collect() is equivalent to:

R result = supplier.get();
for (T element : stream) {
accumulator.accept(result, element);
}
return result;

For example, if we want to "reduce" or "collect" all the elements of a stream into a List, use
the following algorithm:

List<Integer> list =
Stream.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
.collect(
() -> new ArrayList<>(),// Creating the container
(l, i) -> l.add(i), // Adding an element
(l1, l2) -> l1.addAll(l2) // Combining elements
);

We can make it clearer by adding the argument types:

List<Integer> list =
Stream.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
.collect(
() -> new ArrayList<>(),
(l, i) -> l.add(i),
 (l1, l2) -> l1.addAll(l2)
);

We can also use method references:

List<Integer> list =
Stream.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
.collect(
ArrayList::new,
ArrayList::add,
ArrayList::addAll
);

Collectors
The previous version of collect() is useful to learn how collectors work, but in practice, it's
better to use the other version.

Some common collectors of the Collectors class are:

 toList Accumulates elements into a List.

 toSet Accumulates elements into a Set.
 toCollection Accumulates elements into a Collection implementation.
 toMap Accumulates elements into a Map.
 joining Concatenates elements into a String.
 groupingBy Groups elements of type T in lists according to a classification function,
into a map with keys of type K.
 partitioningBy Partitions elements of type T in lists according to a predicate, into a
map.

Since calculation methods can be implemented as reductions, the Collectors class also
provides them as collectors:

 averagingInt/averagingLong/averagingDouble Methods return the average of

the input elements.
 counting Counts the elements of input elements.
 maxBy Returns the maximum element according to a given Comparator.
 minBy Returns the minimum element according to a given Comparator.
 summingInt/summingLong/summingDouble Returns the sum of the input elements.

This way, we can rewrite our previous example:

List<Integer> list =
Stream.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
.collect(
ArrayList::new,
 ArrayList::add,
ArrayList::addAll
);

As:

List<Integer> list =
Stream.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
.collect(Collectors.toList()); // [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Since all these methods are static, we can use static imports.

import static java.util.stream.Collectors.*;

...
List<Integer> list =
Stream.of(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
.collect(toList()); // [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

If we are working with streams of strings, we can join all the elements into one String with:

String s = Stream.of("a", "simple", "string")

.collect(joining()); // "asimplestring"

We can also pass a separator:

String s = Stream.of("a", "simple", "string")

.collect(joining(" ")); // " a simple string"

And a prefix and a suffix:

String s = Stream.of("a", "simple", "string")

.collect(
joining(" ", "This is ", ".")
); // "This is a simple string."

The calculation methods are easy to use. Except for counting(), they either take a Function
to produce a value to apply the operation or (in the case of maxBy and minBy) they take a
Comparator to produce the result:

double avg = Stream.of(1, 2, 3)

.collect(averagingInt(i -> i * 2)); // 4.0

long count = Stream.of(1, 2, 3)

.collect(counting()); // 3

Stream.of(1, 2, 3)
 .collect(maxBy(Comparator.naturalOrder()))
.ifPresent(System.out::println); // 3

Integer sum = Stream.of(1, 2, 3)

.collect(summingInt(i -> i)); // 6

The Collectors class also provides two functions to group the elements of a stream into a
list, in a kind of an SQL GROUP BY style.

The first method is groupingBy() and it has three versions. This is the first one:

groupingBy(Function<? super T,? extends K> classifier)

It takes a Function that classifies elements of type T, groups them into a list and returns the
result in a Map where the keys (of type K) are the Function returned values.

For example, if we want to group a stream of numbers by the range they belong (tens,
twenties, etc.), we can do it with something like this:

Map<Integer, List<Integer>> map =

Stream.of(2, 34, 54, 23, 33, 20, 59, 11, 19, 37)
.collect( groupingBy (i -> i/10 * 10 ) );

The moment you compare this code with the iterative method (with a for loop), you realize
the power of streams and collect(). Just look at how many lines of code are used in the
traditional implementation.

List<Integer> stream =
Arrays.asList(2,34,54,23,33,20,59,11,19,37);
Map<Integer, List<Integer>> map = new HashMap<>();

for(Integer i : stream) {
int key = i/10 * 10;
List<Integer> list = map.get(key);

if(list == null) {
list = new ArrayList<>();
map.put(key, list);
}
list.add(i);
}

In the end, both strategies return the same map.

{0=[2], 50=[54,59], 20=[23,20], 10=[11,19], 30=[34,33,37]}

Downstream Collectors
As you may have noticed, the second version takes a downstream collector as an additional
argument:

groupingBy(Function<? super T,? extends K> classifier,

Collector<? super T,A,D> downstream)

A downstream collector is a collector that is applied to the results of another collector.

We can use any collector here, for instance, to count the elements in each group of the
previous example:

Map<Integer, Long> map =

Stream.of(2, 34, 54, 23, 33, 20, 59, 11, 19, 37)
.collect(
groupingBy(i -> i/10 * 10,
counting()
)
);

Notice how the type of the values of the Map change to reflect the type returned by the
downstream collector, counting().

This will return the following map:

{0=1, 50=2, 20=2, 10=2, 30=3}

We can even use another groupingBy() to classify the elements in a second level. For
instance, instead of counting, we can further classify the elements as even or odd:

Map<Integer, Map<String, List<Integer>>> map =

Stream.of(2,34,54,23,33,20,59,11,19,37)
.collect(groupingBy(i -> i/10 * 10,
groupingBy(i ->
i%2 == 0 ? "EVEN" : "ODD")
)
);

This will return the following map (with a little formatting):

{
0 = {EVEN=[2]},
50 = {EVEN=[54], ODD=[59]},
20 = {EVEN=[20], ODD=[23]},
10 = {ODD=[11, 19]},
 30 = {EVEN=[34], ODD=[33, 37]}
}

The key to the high-level map is an Integer because the first groupingBy() returns a one.

The type of the values of the high-level map changed (again) to reflect the type returned by
the downstream collector, groupingBy().

In this case, a String is returned; this will be the type of the keys of the second-level map,
and since we are working with an Integer Stream, the values have a type of
List<Integer>.

Seeing the output of these examples, you may be wondering, is there a way to order the
results?

Well, TreeMap is the only implementation of Map that is ordered. Fortunately, the third
version of groupingBy() has a Supplier argument that lets us choose the type of the
resulting Map:

groupingBy(Function<? super T,? extends K> classifier,

Supplier<M> mapFactory,
Collector<? super T,A,D> downstream)

This way, if we pass an instance of TreeMap:

Map<Integer, Map<String, List<Integer>>> map =

Stream.of(2,34,54,23,33,20,59,11,19,37)
.collect( groupingBy(i -> i/10 * 10,
TreeMap::new,
groupingBy(i -> i%2 == 0 ? "EVEN" : "ODD")
)
);

This will return the following map:

{
0 = {EVEN=[2]},
10 = {ODD=[11, 19]},
20 = {EVEN=[20], ODD=[23]},
30 = {EVEN=[34], ODD=[33, 37]},
50 = {EVEN=[54], ODD=[59]}
}

partitioningBy()
The second method for grouping is partitioningBy().
The difference with groupingBy() is that partitioningBy() will return a Map with a
Boolean as the key type, which means there are only two groups, one for true and one for
false.

There are two versions of this method. The first one is:

partitioningBy(Predicate<? super T> predicate)

It partitions the elements according to a Predicate and organizes them into a Map<Boolean,
List<T>>.

For example, if we want to partition a stream of numbers by the ones that are less than 50 and
the ones that don't, we can do it this way:

Map<Boolean, List<Integer>> map =

Stream.of(45, 9, 65, 77, 12, 89, 31)
.collect(partitioningBy(i -> i < 50));

This will return the following map:

{false=[65, 77, 89], true=[45, 9, 12, 31, 12]}

As you can see, because of the Predicate, the map will always have two elements.

And like groupingBy(), this method has a second version that takes a downstream collector.

For example, if we want to remove duplicates, we just have to collect the elements into a Set
like this:

Map<Boolean, Set<Integer>> map =

Stream.of(45, 9, 65, 77, 12, 89, 31, 12)
.collect(
partitioningBy(i -> i < 50,
toSet()
)
);

This will produce the following Map:

{false=[65, 89, 77], true=[9, 12, 45, 31]}

java

However, unlike groupingBy(), there's no version that allows us to change the type of the
Map returned. However, we only need two keys for our groups.

Set<Integer> lessThan50 = map.get(true);

Set<Integer> moreThan50 = map.get(false);
Parallel Streams
Until now, all the examples have used sequential streams, where each element are processed
one by one.

Parallel streams split the stream into multiple parts. Each part is processed by a different
thread at the same time (in parallel).

Under the hood, parallel streams use the Fork/Join Framework.

This means that, by default, the number of threads available to process parallel streams equals
the number of available cores in your machine's processor (CPU).

Parallel stream operations

To create a parallel stream just use the parallel() method:

Stream<String> parallelStream =
Stream.of("a","b","c").parallel();

To create a parallel stream from a Collection use the parallelStream() method:

List<String> list = Arrays.asList("a","b","c");

Stream<String> parStream = list.parallelStream();

You can turn a parallel stream into a sequential one with the sequential() method:

stream
.parallel()
.filter(..)
.sequential()
.forEach(...);

Check if a stream is parallel with isParallel():

stream.parallel().isParallel(); // true

And turn an ordered stream into an unordered one (or ensure that the stream is unordered)
with unordered();

stream
.parallel()
.unordered()
.collect(...);

Under the hood

But how do parallel streams work? Let's start with the simplest example:
Stream.of("a","b","c","d","e")
.forEach(System.out::print);

Printing a list of elements with a sequential stream will output the expected result:

abcde

However, when using a parallel stream:

Stream.of("a","b","c","d","e")
.parallel()
.forEach(System.out::print);

The output can be different for each execution:

cbade // One execution

cebad // Another execution
cbdea // Yet another execution

Going back to the definition of parallel streams, this output starts making sense. The
differences in output can be attributed to thread processing; it is possible that a different core
is involved with a particular command each time the code is executed.

Thus parallel streams are more appropriate for operations where the order of processing
doesn't matter and the operations don't need to keep a state (stateless and independent
operations).

An example to see this difference is the use of findFirst() versus findAny().

In the first part, we mentioned that findFirst() method returns the first element of a stream.
But since we're using parallel streams, this method has to "know" which element is the first
one:

long start = System.nanoTime();

String first = Stream.of("a","b","c","d","e")
.parallel().findFirst().get();
long duration = (System.nanoTime() - start) / 1000000;
System.out.println(
first + " found in " + duration + " milliseconds");

The output:

a found in 2.436155 milliseconds

Because of that, if the order doesn't matter, it's better to use findAny() with parallel streams:

long start = System.nanoTime();

String any = Stream.of("a","b","c","d","e")
 .parallel().findAny().get();
long duration = (System.nanoTime() - start) / 1000000;
System.out.println(
any + " found in " + duration + " milliseconds");

The output:

c found in 0.063169 milliseconds

Since a parallel stream is processed by multiple cores, it's reasonable to believe that it will be
processed faster than a sequential stream. But as you can see with findFirst(), this is not
always the case.

For example:

Stream<T> distinct()
Stream<T> sorted()
Stream<T> sorted(Comparator<? super T> comparator)
Stream<T> limit(long maxSize)
Stream<T> skip(long n)

The stateful operations above incorporate state from previously processed elements and
usually need to go through the entire stream to produce a result. Thus they work better with
sequential streams since they end up looking through the stream anyway.

But don't believe that by first executing the stateful operations in a sequential format and then
turning the stream into a parallel one, the performance will be better in all cases. It would be
worse to assume that the entire operation may run in parallel, like the following example:

double start = System.nanoTime();

Stream.of("b","d","a","c","e")
.sorted()
.filter(s -> {
System.out.println("Filter:" + s);
return !"d".equals(s);
})
.parallel()
.map(s -> {
System.out.println("Map:" + s);
return s += s;
})
.forEach(System.out::println);
double duration = (System.nanoTime() - start) / 1_000_000;
System.out.println(duration + " milliseconds");
One might think that the stream is sorted and filtered sequentially, but the output shows
something else:

Filter:c
Map:c
cc
Filter:a
Map:a
aa
Filter:b
Map:b
bb
Filter:d
Filter:e
Map:e
ee
79.470779 milliseconds

Compare this with the output of the sequential version (just comment out .parallel()):

Filter:a
Map:a
aa
Filter:b
Map:b
bb
Filter:c
Map:c
cc
Filter:d
Filter:e
Map:e
ee
1.554562 milliseconds

Clearly, the sequential version performed better; it took 78 milliseconds less.

But if we have an independent or stateless operation, and order doesn't matter, such as with
counting the number of odd numbers in a large range, the parallel version will perform better:

double start = System.nanoTime();

long c = IntStream.rangeClosed(0, 1_000_000_000)
.parallel()
 .filter(i -> i % 2 == 0)
.count();
double duration = (System.nanoTime() - start) / 1_000_000;
System.out.println("Got " + c + " in " + duration + " milliseconds");

The parallel version output:

Got 500000001 in 738.678448 milliseconds

The sequential version output:

Got 500000001 in 1275.271882 milliseconds

In summary, parallel streams don't always perform better than sequential streams when it
comes to stateful operations, but they usually perform better when ordering is not an issue
and operations are independent and stateless.

This, the fact that parallel streams process results independently, and the idea that the order
cannot be guaranteed are the most important things you need to know.

Tips for deciding between sequential and parallel streams

In practice, how do you know when to use sequential or parallel streams for better
performance?

Here are some rules:

 For a small set of data, sequential streams are almost always the best choice due to the
overhead of the parallelism. Using parallel streams is simply unnecessary.
 Typically avoid using parallel streams with stateful (like sorted()) and order-based
(like findFirst()) operations. Sequential streams do just fine (if not better) in these
cases.
 Use parallel streams with operations that are computationally expensive (considering
all the operation in the pipeline).
 When in doubt, check the performance with an appropriate benchmark. To
demonstrate, I used an execution time comparison, but this is just one benchmark.
You may need your program to compile faster or use less memory.

Reducing Parallel Streams

In concurrent environments, assignments are bad.

This is because if you mutate the state of variables (especially if they are shared by more than
one thread), you may run into invalid states.

Consider this example, which implements the factorial of 10 in a very particular way:

class Total {
public long total = 1;
 public void multiply(long n) { total *= n; }
}
...
Total t = new Total();
LongStream.rangeClosed(1, 10)
.forEach(t::multiply);
System.out.println(t.total);

Here, we are using a variable to gather the result of the factorial. The output of executing this
snippet of code is:

3628800

However, when we turn the stream into a parallel one:

LongStream.rangeClosed(1, 10)
.parallel()
.forEach(t::multiply);

Sometimes we get the correct result and other times we don't.

The problem is caused by the multiple threads accessing the variable total concurrently. Yes,
we can synchronize the access to this variable, but that defeats the purpose of parallelism.

Here's where reduce() comes in handy.

Remember that reduce() combines the elements of a stream into a single one.

With parallel streams, this method creates intermediate values and then combines them,
avoiding the ordering problem while still allowing streams to be processed in parallel by
eliminating the shared state and keeping it inside the reduction process.

The only requirement is that the applied reducing operation must be associative.

This means that the operation op must follow this equality:

(a op b) op c == a op (b op c)

Or:

a op b op c op d == (a op b) op (c op d)

So we can evaluate (a op b) and (c op d) in parallel.

We can implement our example using parallel() and reduce() in this way:

long tot = LongStream.rangeClosed(1, 10)

.parallel()
 .reduce(1, (a,b) -> a*b);
System.out.println(tot);

When we execute this snippet of code, it produces the correct result every time (3628800).
Reduce guaranteed that the threads would not access the same stream entries simultaneously
and throw off the results.

Plus, if we time the execution of the first snippet and this last one, we can see a drastic
improvement in performance.

We can safely use collect() with parallel streams if we follow the same requirements of
associativity and identity. (For example, combining any partially accumulated result with an
empty result container must produce an equivalent result.)

Or, if we are grouping with the Collectors class and ordering is not important, we can use
the method groupingByConcurrent(), the concurrent version of groupingBy().

If you understand when to use parallel streams and the issues associated with concurrent
execution, you should be ready to use parallel streams in practice!

Conclusion
We touched the most important parts of the Stream interface. I hope you find streams useful.
Please post all your comments and feedback in the discussion section below. Thanks for
reading.

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