Limit a stream by a predicate

Is there a Java 8 stream operation that limits a (potentially infinite) Stream until the first element fails to match a predicate?

In Java 9 we can use takeWhile as in the example below to print all the numbers less than 10.

IntStream
    .iterate(1, n -> n + 1)
    .takeWhile(n -> n < 10)
    .forEach(System.out::println);

As there is no such operation in Java 8, what's the best way of implementing it in a general way?


Operations takeWhile and dropWhile have been added to JDK 9. Your example code

IntStream
    .iterate(1, n -> n + 1)
    .takeWhile(n -> n < 10)
    .forEach(System.out::println);

will behave exactly as you expect it to when compiled and run under JDK 9.

JDK 9 has been released. It is available for download here: JDK 9 Releases.


Such an operation ought to be possible with a Java 8 Stream, but it can't necessarily be done efficiently -- for example, you can't necessarily parallelize such an operation, as you have to look at elements in order.

The API doesn't provide an easy way to do it, but what's probably the simplest way is to take Stream.iterator(), wrap the Iterator to have a "take-while" implementation, and then go back to a Spliterator and then a Stream. Or -- maybe -- wrap the Spliterator, though it can't really be split anymore in this implementation.

Here's an untested implementation of takeWhile on a Spliterator:

static <T> Spliterator<T> takeWhile(
    Spliterator<T> splitr, Predicate<? super T> predicate) {
  return new Spliterators.AbstractSpliterator<T>(splitr.estimateSize(), 0) {
    boolean stillGoing = true;
    @Override public boolean tryAdvance(Consumer<? super T> consumer) {
      if (stillGoing) {
        boolean hadNext = splitr.tryAdvance(elem -> {
          if (predicate.test(elem)) {
            consumer.accept(elem);
          } else {
            stillGoing = false;
          }
        });
        return hadNext && stillGoing;
      }
      return false;
    }
  };
}

static <T> Stream<T> takeWhile(Stream<T> stream, Predicate<? super T> predicate) {
   return StreamSupport.stream(takeWhile(stream.spliterator(), predicate), false);
}

allMatch() is a short-circuiting function, so you can use it to stop processing. The main disadvantage is that you have to do your test twice: once to see if you should process it, and again to see whether to keep going.

IntStream
    .iterate(1, n -> n + 1)
    .peek(n->{if (n<10) System.out.println(n);})
    .allMatch(n->n < 10);

As a follow-up to @StuartMarks answer. My StreamEx library has the takeWhile operation which is compatible with current JDK-9 implementation. When running under JDK-9 it will just delegate to the JDK implementation (via MethodHandle.invokeExact which is really fast). When running under JDK-8, the "polyfill" implementation will be used. So using my library the problem can be solved like this:

IntStreamEx.iterate(1, n -> n + 1)
           .takeWhile(n -> n < 10)
           .forEach(System.out::println);

takeWhile is one of the functions provided by the protonpack library.

Stream<Integer> infiniteInts = Stream.iterate(0, i -> i + 1);
Stream<Integer> finiteInts = StreamUtils.takeWhile(infiniteInts, i -> i < 10);

assertThat(finiteInts.collect(Collectors.toList()),
           hasSize(10));