Split list when predicate is true - list

Question

Does Kotlin provide a mutation function to split a list when a specific predicate is true?
In the following example the list should be split when the element is a ..
The result should be of the type List<List<String>>.
// input list
val list = listOf(
"This is", "the", "first sentence", ".",
"And", "now there is", "a second", "one", ".",
"Nice", "."
)
// the following should be the result of the transformation
listOf(
listOf("This is", "the", "first sentence"),
listOf("And", "now there is", "a second", "one"),
listOf("Nice")
)
I need something like list.splitWhen { it == "." }

Answer 1

Does Kotlin provide a mutation function to split a list when a
specific predicate is true?
The closest one I have heard of is partition(), however I don't think it will work in your case.
I have made and have briefly tested 3 higher order extension functions, which gives the same expected output.
Solution 1: Straightforward approach
inline fun List<String>.splitWhen(predicate: (String)->Boolean):List<List<String>> {
val list = mutableListOf<MutableList<String>>()
var needNewList = false
forEach {
string->
if(!predicate(string)){
if(needNewList||list.isEmpty()){
list.add(mutableListOf(string))
needNewList= false
}
else {
list.last().add(string)
}
}
else {
/* When a delimiter is found */
needNewList = true
}
}
return list
}
Solution 2: Pair based approach
inline fun List<String>.splitWhen(predicate: (String)->Boolean):List<List<String>> {
val list = mutableListOf<List<String>>()
withIndex()
.filter { indexedValue -> predicate(indexedValue.value) || indexedValue.index==0 || indexedValue.index==size-1} // Just getting the delimiters with their index; Include 0 and last -- so to not ignore it while pairing later on
.zipWithNext() // zip the IndexValue with the adjacent one so to later remove continuous delimiters; Example: Indices : 0,1,2,5,7 -> (0,1),(1,2),(2,5),(5,7)
.filter { pair-> pair.first.index + 1 != pair.second.index } // Getting rid of continuous delimiters; Example: (".",".") will be removed, where "." is the delimiter
.forEach{pair->
val startIndex = if(predicate(pair.first.value)) pair.first.index+1 else pair.first.index // Trying to not consider delimiters
val endIndex = if(!predicate(pair.second.value) && pair.second.index==size-1) pair.second.index+1 else pair.second.index // subList() endIndex is exclusive
list.add(subList(startIndex,endIndex)) // Adding the relevant sub-list
}
return list
}
Solution 3: Check next value if delimiter found approach
inline fun List<String>.splitWhen(predicate: (String)-> Boolean):List<List<String>> =
foldIndexed(mutableListOf<MutableList<String>>(),{index, list, string->
when {
predicate(string) -> if(index<size-1 && !predicate(get(index+1))) list.add(mutableListOf()) // Adds a new List within the output List; To prevent continuous delimiters -- !predicate(get(index+1))
list.isNotEmpty() -> list.last().add(string) // Just adding it to lastly added sub-list, as the string is not a delimiter
else -> list.add(mutableListOf(string)) // Happens for the first String
}
list})
Simply call list.splitWhen{it=="delimiter"}. Solution 3 looks more syntactic sugar. Apart from it, you can do some performance test to check which one performs well.
Note: I have done some brief tests which you can have a look via Kotlin Playground or via Github gist.