Filter values only if not null using lambda in Java8

I have a list of objects say car. I want to filter this list based on some parameter using Java 8. But if the parameter is null, it throws NullPointerException. How to filter out null values?

Current code is as follows

requiredCars = cars.stream().filter(c -> c.getName().startsWith("M"));

This throws NullPointerException if getName() returns null.

In this particular example, I think @Tagir is 100% correct get it into one filter and do the two checks. I wouldn't use Optional.ofNullable the Optional stuff is really for return types not to be doing logic... but really neither here nor there.

I wanted to point out that java.util.Objects has a nice method for this in a broad case, so you can do this:

    cars.stream()
        .filter(Objects::nonNull)

Which will clear out your null objects. For anyone not familiar, that's the short-hand for the following:

    cars.stream()
        .filter(car -> Objects.nonNull(car))

To partially answer the question at hand to return the list of car names that starts with "M":

    cars.stream()
        .filter(car -> Objects.nonNull(car))
        .map(car -> car.getName())
        .filter(carName -> Objects.nonNull(carName))
        .filter(carName -> carName.startsWith("M"))
        .collect(Collectors.toList());

Once you get used to the shorthand lambdas you could also do this:

    cars.stream()
        .filter(Objects::nonNull)
        .map(Car::getName)        // Assume the class name for car is Car
        .filter(Objects::nonNull)
        .filter(carName -> carName.startsWith("M"))
        .collect(Collectors.toList());

Unfortunately once you .map(Car::getName) you'll only be returning the list of names, not the cars. So less beautiful but fully answers the question:

    cars.stream()
        .filter(car -> Objects.nonNull(car))
        .filter(car -> Objects.nonNull(car.getName()))
        .filter(car -> car.getName().startsWith("M"))
        .collect(Collectors.toList());

You just need to filter the cars that have a null name:

requiredCars = cars.stream()
                   .filter(c -> c.getName() != null)
                   .filter(c -> c.getName().startsWith("M"));

The proposed answers are great. Just would like to suggest an improvement to handle the case of null list using Optional.ofNullable, new feature in Java 8:

List<String> carsFiltered = Optional.ofNullable(cars)
                    .orElseGet(Collections::emptyList)
                    .stream()
                    .filter(Objects::nonNull)
                    .collect(Collectors.toList());

So, the full answer will be:

List<String> carsFiltered = Optional.ofNullable(cars)
                    .orElseGet(Collections::emptyList)
                    .stream()
                    .filter(Objects::nonNull) //filtering car object that are null
                    .map(Car::getName) //now it's a stream of Strings
                    .filter(Objects::nonNull) //filtering null in Strings
                    .filter(name -> name.startsWith("M"))
                    .collect(Collectors.toList()); //back to List of Strings

You can do this in single filter step:

requiredCars = cars.stream().filter(c -> c.getName() != null && c.getName().startsWith("M"));

If you don't want to call getName() several times (for example, it's expensive call), you can do this:

requiredCars = cars.stream().filter(c -> {
    String name = c.getName();
    return name != null && name.startsWith("M");
});

Or in more sophisticated way:

requiredCars = cars.stream().filter(c -> 
    Optional.ofNullable(c.getName()).filter(name -> name.startsWith("M")).isPresent());

Leveraging the power of java.util.Optional#map():

List<Car> requiredCars = cars.stream()
  .filter (car -> 
    Optional.ofNullable(car)
      .map(Car::getName)
      .map(name -> name.startsWith("M"))
      .orElse(false) // what to do if either car or getName() yields null? false will filter out the element
    )
  .collect(Collectors.toList())
;

you can use this

List<Car> requiredCars = cars.stream()
    .filter (t->  t!= null && StringUtils.startsWith(t.getName(),"M"))
    .collect(Collectors.toList());