How to convert a list of objects to a list of strings in Java

To convert a list of objects to a list of strings in Java, you can use the Streams API map() method. Suppose we have the following User.java class that stores user information.

public class User {
    private String name;
    private String profession;
    private int age;

    public User(String name, String profession, int age) {
        this.name = name;
        this.profession = profession;
        this.age = age;
    }

    // getters and setters, equals(), toString() .... (omitted for brevity)
}

The following example demonstrates how you can convert a list of User objects into a list of strings using Java 8 streams:

// Create a list of users
List<User> users = List.of(
        new User("John Doe", "Engineer", 23),
        new User("Alex Mike", "Doctor", 43),
        new User("Jovan Lee", "Lawyer", 34)
);

// Convert list of users to list of strings
List<String> list = users.stream()
        .map(User::toString)
        .collect(Collectors.toList());

// Print list of strings
list.forEach(System.out::println);

// User{name='John Doe', profession='Engineer', age=23}
// User{name='Alex Mike', profession='Doctor', age=43}
// User{name='Jovan Lee', profession='Lawyer', age=34}

To convert a list of User objects to a list of name values, you can do the following:

List<String> list = users.stream()
        .map(User::getName)
        .collect(Collectors.toList());

list.forEach(System.out::println);

// John Doe
// Alex Mike
// Jovan Lee

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