Calculating average of an array list?

Question

I\'m trying to use the below code to calculate the average of a set of values that a user enters and display it in a jTextArea but it does not work properly. Sa

Answer 1

If using Java8 you can get the average of the values from a List as follows:

    List intList = Arrays.asList(1,2,2,3,1,5);

    Double average = intList.stream().mapToInt(val -> val).average().orElse(0.0);

This has the advantage of having no moving parts. It can be easily adapted to work with a List of other types of object by changing the map method call.

For example with Doubles:

    List dblList = Arrays.asList(1.1,2.1,2.2,3.1,1.5,5.3);
    Double average = dblList.stream().mapToDouble(val -> val).average().orElse(0.0);

NB. mapToDouble is required because it returns a DoubleStream which has an average method, while using map does not.

or BigDecimals:

@Test
public void bigDecimalListAveragedCorrectly() {
    List bdList = Arrays.asList(valueOf(1.1),valueOf(2.1),valueOf(2.2),valueOf(3.1),valueOf(1.5),valueOf(5.3));
    Double average = bdList.stream().mapToDouble(BigDecimal::doubleValue).average().orElse(0.0);
    assertEquals(2.55, average, 0.000001);
}

using orElse(0.0) removes problems with the Optional object returned from the average being 'not present'.