[java] Java Compare Two Lists

I have two lists ( not java lists, you can say two columns)

For example

**List 1**            **Lists 2**
  milan                 hafil
  dingo                 iga
  iga                   dingo
  elpha                 binga
  hafil                 mike
  meat                  dingo
  milan
  elpha
  meat
  iga                   
  neeta.peeta    

I'd like a method that returns how many elements are same. For this example it should be 3 and it should return me similar values of both list and different values too.

Should I use hashmap if yes then what method to get my result?

Please help

P.S: It is not a school assignment :) So if you just guide me it will be enough

If you are looking for a handy way to test the equality of two collections, you can use org.apache.commons.collections.CollectionUtils.isEqualCollection, which compares two collections regardless of the ordering.

Of all the approaches, I find using org.apache.commons.collections.CollectionUtils#isEqualCollection is the best approach. Here are the reasons -

• I don't have to declare any additional list/set myself
• I am not mutating the input lists
• It's very efficient. It checks the equality in O(N) complexity.

If it's not possible to have apache.commons.collections as a dependency, I would recommend to implement the algorithm it follows to check equality of the list because of it's efficiency.

Are these really lists (ordered, with duplicates), or are they sets (unordered, no duplicates)?

Because if it's the latter, then you can use, say, a java.util.HashSet<E> and do this in expected linear time using the convenient retainAll.

    List<String> list1 = Arrays.asList(
        "milan", "milan", "iga", "dingo", "milan"
    );
    List<String> list2 = Arrays.asList(
        "hafil", "milan", "dingo", "meat"
    );

    // intersection as set
    Set<String> intersect = new HashSet<String>(list1);
    intersect.retainAll(list2);
    System.out.println(intersect.size()); // prints "2"
    System.out.println(intersect); // prints "[milan, dingo]"

    // intersection/union as list
    List<String> intersectList = new ArrayList<String>();
    intersectList.addAll(list1);
    intersectList.addAll(list2);
    intersectList.retainAll(intersect);
    System.out.println(intersectList);
    // prints "[milan, milan, dingo, milan, milan, dingo]"

    // original lists are structurally unmodified
    System.out.println(list1); // prints "[milan, milan, iga, dingo, milan]"
    System.out.println(list2); // prints "[hafil, milan, dingo, meat]"

public static boolean compareList(List ls1, List ls2){
    return ls1.containsAll(ls2) && ls1.size() == ls2.size() ? true :false;
     }

public static void main(String[] args) {

    ArrayList<String> one = new ArrayList<String>();
    one.add("one");
    one.add("two");
    one.add("six");

    ArrayList<String> two = new ArrayList<String>();
    two.add("one");
    two.add("six");
    two.add("two");

    System.out.println("Output1 :: " + compareList(one, two));

    two.add("ten");

    System.out.println("Output2 :: " + compareList(one, two));
  }

Assuming hash1 and hash2

List< String > sames = whatever
List< String > diffs = whatever

int count = 0;
for( String key : hash1.keySet() )
{
   if( hash2.containsKey( key ) ) 
   {
      sames.add( key );
   }
   else
   {
      diffs.add( key );
   }
}

//sames.size() contains the number of similar elements.

Simple solution :-

    List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>(Arrays.asList("a", "b", "d", "c"));
    List<String> list2 = new ArrayList<String>(Arrays.asList("b", "f", "c"));

    list.retainAll(list2);
    list2.removeAll(list);
    System.out.println("similiar " + list);
    System.out.println("different " + list2);

Output :-

similiar [b, c]
different [f]

I found a very basic example of List comparison at List Compare This example verifies the size first and then checks the availability of the particular element of one list in another.

Using java 8 removeIf

public int getSimilarItems(){
    List<String> one = Arrays.asList("milan", "dingo", "elpha", "hafil", "meat", "iga", "neeta.peeta");
    List<String> two = new ArrayList<>(Arrays.asList("hafil", "iga", "binga", "mike", "dingo")); //Cannot remove directly from array backed collection
    int initial = two.size();

    two.removeIf(one::contains);
    return initial - two.size();
}

You can try intersection() and subtract() methods from CollectionUtils.

intersection() method gives you a collection containing common elements and the subtract() method gives you all the uncommon ones.

They should also take care of similar elements