Convert an Iterable to Collection in Java

Iterable and Collection have served to be of great use in Java. Iterators are used in Collection framework in Java to retrieve elements one by one and a Collection is a group of individual objects represented as a single unit. Java provides Collection Framework which defines several classes and interfaces to represent a group of objects as a single unit.

But at certain times, it is required to switch from iterable to collection and vie versa. For more details on difference between Iterable and Collection, please refer to the post Iterator vs Collection in Java.

The conversion of Iterable to Collection can be carried out in following ways:

1. Creating a utility function: Creating a utility function means creating a function that converts the iterable to a collection by explicitly taking each item into account. This also can be done in many ways as explained below:
   • Using For loop
     
     
     
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     // Below is the program to convert an Iterable // into a Collection using for loop    import java.io.*; import java.util.*;    class GFG {     // function to convert Iterable into Collection     public static <T> Collection<T>                     getCollectionFromIteralbe(Iterable<T> itr)     {         // Create an empty Collection to hold the result         Collection<T> cltn = new ArrayList<T>();            // Iterate through the iterable to         // add each element into the collection         for (T t : itr)             cltn.add(t);            // Return the converted collection         return cltn;     }        public static void main(String[] args)     {         Iterable<Integer> i = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4);         System.out.println("Iterable List : " + i);            Collection<Integer> cn = getCollectionFromIteralbe(i);         System.out.println("Collection List : " + cn);     } }

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     Output:

     Iterable List : [1, 2, 3, 4]
     Collection List : [1, 2, 3, 4]
     

   
   

   • Using Iterable.forEach():
     It can be used in Java 8 and above.
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     // Below is the program to convert an Iterable // into a Collection using iterable.forEach    import java.io.*; import java.util.*;    class GFG {     // function to convert Iterable into Collection     public static <T> Collection<T>                  getCollectionFromIteralbe(Iterable<T> itr)     {         // Create an empty Collection to hold the result         Collection<T> cltn = new ArrayList<T>();            // Use iterable.forEach() to         // Iterate through the iterable and         // add each element into the collection         itr.forEach(cltn::add);            // Return the converted collection         return cltn;     }        public static void main(String[] args)     {         Iterable<Integer> i = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4);         System.out.println("Iterable List : " + i);            Collection<Integer> cn = getCollectionFromIteralbe(i);         System.out.println("Collection List : " + cn);     } }

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     Output:

     Iterable List : [1, 2, 3, 4]
     Collection List : [1, 2, 3, 4]
     

   
   

   • Using Iterator: The forEach loop uses Iterator in the background. Hence it can be done explicitly in the following way.
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     // Below is the program to convert an Iterable // into a Collection using Iterator    import java.io.*; import java.util.*;    class GFG {     // function to convert Iterable into Collection     public static <T> Collection<T>                     getCollectionFromIteralbe(Iterable<T> itr)     {         // Create an empty Collection to hold the result         Collection<T> cltn = new ArrayList<T>();            // Get the iterator at the iterable         Iterator<T> iterator = itr.iterator();            // Iterate through the iterable using         // iterator to add each element into the collection         while (iterator.hasNext()) {             cltn.add(iterator.next());         }            // Return the converted collection         return cltn;     }        public static void main(String[] args)     {         Iterable<Integer> i = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4);         System.out.println("Iterable List : " + i);            Collection<Integer> cn = getCollectionFromIteralbe(i);         System.out.println("Collection List : " + cn);     } }

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     Output:

     Iterable List : [1, 2, 3, 4]
     Collection List : [1, 2, 3, 4]
     

2. Java 8 Stream: With the introduction of Stream in Java 8, works like this has become quite easy. To convert iterable to Collection, the iterable is first converted into spliterator. Then with the help of StreamSupport.stream(), the spliterator can be traversed and then collected with the help collect() into collection.
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   // Program to convert an Iterable // into a Collection    import java.io.*; import java.util.*; import java.util.stream.*;    class GFG {     // function to convert Iterable into Collection     public static <T> Collection<T>                     getCollectionFromIteralbe(Iterable<T> itr)     {         // Create an empty Collection to hold the result         Collection<T> cltn = new ArrayList<T>();            return StreamSupport.stream(itr.spliterator(), false)             .collect(Collectors.toList());     }        public static void main(String[] args)     {         Iterable<Integer> i = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4);         System.out.println("Iterable List : " + i);            Collection<Integer> cn = getCollectionFromIteralbe(i);         System.out.println("Collection List : " + cn);     } }

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   Output:

   Iterable List : [1, 2, 3, 4]
   Collection List : [1, 2, 3, 4]
   

RishabhPrabhu

Technical Content Engineer