This post will discuss how to convert a set to an array in plain Java, Java 8, and the Guava library.
A naive solution is to iterate over the given set and copy each encountered element in the Integer array one by one.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 | Set<Integer> set = new HashSet<>(Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)); Integer[] array = new Integer[set.size()]; int k = 0; for (Integer i: set) { array[k++] = i; } System.out.println(Arrays.toString(array)); |
Set.toArray()
methodSet
interface provides the toArray()
method that returns an Object
array containing the elements of the set.
1 2 3 | Set<Integer> set = new HashSet<>(Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)); Object[] array = set.toArray(); System.out.println(Arrays.toString(array)); |
The JVM doesn’t know the desired object type, so the toArray()
method returns an Object[]
. We can pass a typed array to the overloaded toArray(T[] a)
method to let JVM know your desired object type.
1 2 3 | Set<Integer> set = new HashSet<>(Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)); Integer[] array = set.toArray(new Integer[set.size()]); System.out.println(Arrays.toString(array)); |
We can also pass an empty array of the specified type, and JVM will allocate the necessary memory:
1 2 3 | Set<Integer> set = new HashSet<>(Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)); Integer[] array = set.toArray(new Integer[0]); System.out.println(Arrays.toString(array)); |
In Java 8, we can use the Stream to convert a set to an array. The idea is to convert a given set to stream using Set.stream()
method and use Stream.toArray()
method to return an array containing the stream elements. There are two ways to do so:
⮚ Using Streams with method reference
1 2 3 | Set<Integer> set = new HashSet<>(Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)); Integer[] array = set.stream().toArray(Integer[]::new); System.out.println(Arrays.toString(array)); |
⮚ Using Streams with lambda expression
1 2 3 | Set<Integer> set = new HashSet<>(Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)); Integer[] array = set.stream().toArray(n -> new Integer[n]); System.out.println(Arrays.toString(array)); |
⮚ Using FluentIterable
class:
The FluentIterable
is an expanded Iterable
API that provides similar functionality as Java 8’s Stream. We can get a fluent iterable that wraps an iterable set and returns an array containing all the elements from the fluent iterable.
1 2 3 | Set<Integer> set = new HashSet<>(Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)); Integer[] array = FluentIterable.from(set).toArray(Integer.class); System.out.println(Arrays.toString(array)); |
⮚ Using Iterables
class:
Guava’s Iterables
class also provides the toArray()
method that copies an iterable’s elements into an array.
1 2 3 | Set<Integer> set = new HashSet<>(Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)); Integer[] array = Iterables.toArray(set, Integer.class); System.out.println(Arrays.toString(array)); |
That’s all about converting Set to array in Java.