Java 8 Distinct by property

Question

In Java 8 how can I filter a collection using the Stream API by checking the distinctness of a property of each object?

For example I have a list of

Answer 1

A variation of the top answer that handles null:

    public static  Predicate distinctBy(final Function getKey) {
        val seen = ConcurrentHashMap.>newKeySet();
        return obj -> seen.add(Optional.ofNullable(getKey.apply(obj)));
    }

In my tests:

        assertEquals(
                asList("a", "bb"),
                Stream.of("a", "b", "bb", "aa").filter(distinctBy(String::length)).collect(toList()));

        assertEquals(
                asList(5, null, 2, 3),
                Stream.of(5, null, 2, null, 3, 3, 2).filter(distinctBy(x -> x)).collect(toList()));

        val maps = asList(
                hashMapWith(0, 2),
                hashMapWith(1, 2),
                hashMapWith(2, null),
                hashMapWith(3, 1),
                hashMapWith(4, null),
                hashMapWith(5, 2));

        assertEquals(
                asList(0, 2, 3),
                maps.stream()
                        .filter(distinctBy(m -> m.get("val")))
                        .map(m -> m.get("i"))
                        .collect(toList()));