Stream.max(Integer::max) : Unexpected result [duplicate]

Answer 1

The contract of a comparator method (on arguments first, second) is:

• return 0 if first equals second
• return negative value if first < second
• return positive value if first > second

The max method with only positive values will always return a positive value. When interpreting the return value according to the comparator contract, a positive value means first > second. As a result, the ordering of items will not change, they appear to be "ordered".