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Java 17: Stream API Collectors.groupingBy returns null values in nested collections

👀 Views: 67 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-13
java stream-api collectors Java

I'm having trouble with Hey everyone, I'm running into an issue that's driving me crazy. I'm currently working with Java 17 and trying to group a list of objects using the `Stream API` with `Collectors.groupingBy()`. However, I'm encountering a problem where some of the grouped results contain null values, which is not the expected behavior. My object structure consists of a `Person` class with fields like `id`, `name`, and `age`, and I'm trying to group them by `age`. Here's the code I'm using: ```java import java.util.*; import java.util.stream.*; class Person { private int id; private String name; private Integer age; // Using Integer to allow null // Constructor, getters, and setters public Person(int id, String name, Integer age) { this.id = id; this.name = name; this.age = age; } public Integer getAge() { return age; } } public class Main { public static void main(String[] args) { List<Person> people = Arrays.asList( new Person(1, "Alice", 30), new Person(2, "Bob", null), // This person has a null age new Person(3, "Charlie", 30), new Person(4, "David", 25) ); Map<Integer, List<Person>> groupedByAge = people.stream() .collect(Collectors.groupingBy(Person::getAge)); System.out.println(groupedByAge); } } ``` When I run this code, I see output like this: ```plaintext {25=[Person@1b6d3586], 30=[Person@6d06d69c], null=[Person@7852e922]} ``` I expected the result to ignore null values when grouping. I’ve tried filtering out null ages before grouping like this: ```java Map<Integer, List<Person>> groupedByAge = people.stream() .filter(person -> person.getAge() != null) .collect(Collectors.groupingBy(Person::getAge)); ``` But I still see the `null` key in the final map. I would like to know if there's a better way to handle this scenario or if I'm missing something in my approach. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I'm working on a CLI tool that needs to handle this. Am I missing something obvious? I'm working with Java in a Docker container on Windows 10. Could this be a known issue? This is happening in both development and production on Ubuntu 22.04. Thanks in advance! I'm using Java 3.11 in this project. Thanks, I really appreciate it!