How to format a list of strings into

Question

I have a list of strings that I want to format each of them in the same way. e.g. myListOfStrings = str1, str2, str3, and my format is (%s) I want to have something like this:

String.format(" (%s) ", myListOfStrings)

Will output

(str1)  (str2)  (str3)

Is there an elegant way of doing this? or do I have to use a string builder and do a foreach loop on all the strings?

Answer 1

You can do this with Java 8:

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

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

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

    final String joined = strings.stream()
            .collect(joining(") (", "(", ")"));

    System.out.println(joined);
}

Or:

final String joined = strings.stream()
        .map(item -> "(" + item + ")")
        .collect(joining(" "));

Which one you prefer is a matter of personal preference.

The first joins the items on ) ( which gives:

a) (b) (c

Then you use the prefix and suffix arguments to joining to with prefix with ( and suffix with ), to produce the right outcome.

The second alternative transforms each item to ( + item + ) and then joins them on " ".

The first might also be somewhat faster, as it only requires the creation of one StringBuilder instance - for both the join and the pre/suffix. The second alternative requires the creation of n + 1 StringBuilder instances, one for each element and one for the join on " ".