Java List.contains(Object with field value equal to x)

I want to check whether a List contains an object that has a field with a certain value. Now, I could use a loop to go through and check, but I was curious if there was anything more code efficient.

Something like;

if(list.contains(new Object().setName("John"))){
    //Do some stuff
}

I know the above code doesn't do anything, it's just to demonstrate roughly what I am trying to achieve.

Also, just to clarify, the reason I don't want to use a simple loop is because this code will currently go inside a loop that is inside a loop which is inside a loop. For readability I don't want to keep adding loops to these loops. So I wondered if there were any simple(ish) alternatives.

Streams

If you are using Java 8, perhaps you could try something like this:

public boolean containsName(final List<MyObject> list, final String name){
    return list.stream().filter(o -> o.getName().equals(name)).findFirst().isPresent();
}

Or alternatively, you could try something like this:

public boolean containsName(final List<MyObject> list, final String name){
    return list.stream().map(MyObject::getName).filter(name::equals).findFirst().isPresent();
}

This method will return true if the List<MyObject> contains a MyObject with the name name. If you want to perform an operation on each of the MyObjects that getName().equals(name), then you could try something like this:

public void perform(final List<MyObject> list, final String name){
    list.stream().filter(o -> o.getName().equals(name)).forEach(
            o -> {
                //...
            }
    );
}

Where o represents a MyObject instance.

Alternatively, as the comments suggest (Thanks MK10), you could use the Stream#anyMatch method:

public boolean containsName(final List<MyObject> list, final String name){
    return list.stream().anyMatch(o -> o.getName().equals(name));
}

You have two choices.

1. The first choice, which is preferable, is to override the equals() method in your Object class.

Let's say, for example, you have this Object class:

public class MyObject {
    private String name;
    private String location;
    //getters and setters
}

Now let's say you only care about the MyObject's name, that it should be unique so if two MyObjects have the same name they should be considered equal. In that case, you would want to override the equals() method (and also the hashcode() method) so that it compares the names to determine equality.

Once you've done this, you can check to see if a Collection contains a MyObject with the name "foo" by like so:

MyObject object = new MyObject();
object.setName("foo");
collection.contains(object);

However, this might not be an option for you if:

• You are using both the name and location to check for equality, but you only want to check if a Collection has any MyObjects with a certain location. In this case, you've already overridden equals().
• MyObject is part of an API that you don't have liberty to change.

If either of these are the case, you'll want option 2:

2. Write your own utility method:

public static boolean containsLocation(Collection<MyObject> c, String location) {
    for(MyObject o : c) {
        if(o != null && o.getLocation.equals(location)) {
            return true;
        }
    }
    return false;
}

Alternatively, you could extend ArrayList (or some other collection) and then add your own method to it:

public boolean containsLocation(String location) {
    for(MyObject o : this) {
        if(o != null && o.getLocation.equals(location)) {
                return true;
            }
        }
        return false;
    }
        

Unfortunately there's not a better way around it.

This is how to do it using Java 8+ :

boolean isJohnAlive = list.stream().anyMatch(o -> "John".equals(o.getName());

Google Guava

If you're using Guava, you can take a functional approach and do the following

FluentIterable.from(list).find(new Predicate<MyObject>() {
   public boolean apply(MyObject input) {
      return "John".equals(input.getName());
   }
}).Any();

which looks a little verbose. However the predicate is an object and you can provide different variants for different searches. Note how the library itself separates the iteration of the collection and the function you wish to apply. You don't have to override equals() for a particular behaviour.

As noted below, the java.util.Stream framework built into Java 8 and later provides something similar.

Collection.contains() is implemented by calling equals() on each object until one returns true.

So one way to implement this is to override equals() but of course, you can only have one equals.

Frameworks like Guava therefore use predicates for this. With Iterables.find(list, predicate), you can search for arbitrary fields by putting the test into the predicate.

Other languages built on top of the VM have this built in. In Groovy, for example, you simply write:

def result = list.find{ it.name == 'John' }

Java 8 made all our lives easier, too:

List<Foo> result = list.stream()
    .filter(it -> "John".equals(it.getName())
    .collect(Collectors.toList());

If you care about things like this, I suggest the book "Beyond Java". It contains many examples for the numerous shortcomings of Java and how other languages do better.

Binary Search

You can use Collections.binarySearch to search an element in your list (assuming the list is sorted):

Collections.binarySearch(list, new YourObject("a1", "b",
				"c"), new Comparator<YourObject>() {

			@Override
			public int compare(YourObject o1, YourObject o2) {
				return o1.getName().compareTo(o2.getName());
			}
		});

which will return a negative number if the object is not present in the collection or else it will return the index of the object. With this you can search for objects with different searching strategies.

Map

You could create a Hashmap<String, Object> using one of the values as a key, and then seeing if yourHashMap.keySet().contains(yourValue) returns true.

Eclipse Collections

If you're using Eclipse Collections, you can use the anySatisfy() method. Either adapt your List in a ListAdapter or change your List into a ListIterable if possible.

ListIterable<MyObject> list = ...;

boolean result =
    list.anySatisfy(myObject -> myObject.getName().equals("John"));

If you'll do operations like this frequently, it's better to extract a method which answers whether the type has the attribute.

public class MyObject
{
    private final String name;

    public MyObject(String name)
    {
        this.name = name;
    }
    
    public boolean named(String name)
    {
        return Objects.equals(this.name, name);
    }
}

You can use the alternate form anySatisfyWith() together with a method reference.

boolean result = list.anySatisfyWith(MyObject::named, "John");

If you cannot change your List into a ListIterable, here's how you'd use ListAdapter.

boolean result = 
    ListAdapter.adapt(list).anySatisfyWith(MyObject::named, "John");

Note: I am a committer for Eclipse ollections.

Predicate

If you dont use Java 8, or library which gives you more functionality for dealing with collections, you could implement something which can be more reusable than your solution.

interface Predicate<T>{
		boolean contains(T item);
	}
	
	static class CollectionUtil{
		
		public static <T> T find(final Collection<T> collection,final  Predicate<T> predicate){
			for (T item : collection){
				if (predicate.contains(item)){
					return item;
				}
			}
			return null;
		}
	// and many more methods to deal with collection	
	}

i'm using something like that, i have predicate interface, and i'm passing it implementation to my util class.

What is advantage of doing this in my way? you have one method which deals with searching in any type collection. and you dont have to create separate methods if you want to search by different field. alll what you need to do is provide different predicate which can be destroyed as soon as it no longer usefull/

if you want to use it, all what you need to do is call method and define tyour predicate

CollectionUtil.find(list, new Predicate<MyObject>{
    public boolean contains(T item){
        return "John".equals(item.getName());
     }
});

Here is a solution using Guava

private boolean checkUserListContainName(List<User> userList, final String targetName){

    return FluentIterable.from(userList).anyMatch(new Predicate<User>() {
        @Override
        public boolean apply(@Nullable User input) {
            return input.getName().equals(targetName);
        }
    });
}

contains method uses equals internally. So you need to override the equals method for your class as per your need.

Btw this does not look syntatically correct:

new Object().setName("John")

If you need to perform this List.contains(Object with field value equal to x) repeatedly, a simple and efficient workaround would be:

List<field obj type> fieldOfInterestValues = new ArrayList<field obj type>;
for(Object obj : List) {
    fieldOfInterestValues.add(obj.getFieldOfInterest());
}

Then the List.contains(Object with field value equal to x) would be have the same result as fieldOfInterestValues.contains(x);

Despite JAVA 8 SDK there is a lot of collection tools libraries can help you to work with, for instance: http://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-collections/

Predicate condition = new Predicate() {
   boolean evaluate(Object obj) {
        return ((Sample)obj).myField.equals("myVal");
   }
};
List result = CollectionUtils.select( list, condition );