How to calculate the intersection of two sets?

user496949 picture user496949 · Jan 16, 2012 · Viewed 206.3k times · Source

Possible Duplicate:
Efficiently finding the intersection of a variable number of sets of strings

Say, have two Hashset, how to calculate the intersection of them?

Set<String> s1 = new HashSet<String>();

Set<String> s2 = new HashSet<String>();

S1 INT S2 ?

Answer

Bohemian picture Bohemian · Jan 16, 2012

Use the retainAll() method of Set:

Set<String> s1;
Set<String> s2;
s1.retainAll(s2); // s1 now contains only elements in both sets

If you want to preserve the sets, create a new set to hold the intersection:

Set<String> intersection = new HashSet<String>(s1); // use the copy constructor
intersection.retainAll(s2);

The javadoc of retainAll() says it's exactly what you want:

Retains only the elements in this set that are contained in the specified collection (optional operation). In other words, removes from this set all of its elements that are not contained in the specified collection. If the specified collection is also a set, this operation effectively modifies this set so that its value is the intersection of the two sets.