I'm actually very surprised I was unable to find the answer to this here, though maybe I'm just using the wrong search terms or something. Closest I could find is this, but they ask about generating a specific range of doubles with a specific step size, and the answers treat it as such. I need something that will generate the numbers with arbitrary start, end and step size.
I figure there has to be some method like this in a library somewhere already, but if so I wasn't able to find it easily (again, maybe I'm just using the wrong search terms or something). So here's what I've cooked up on my own in the last few minutes to do this:
import java.lang.Math;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.ArrayList;
public class DoubleSequenceGenerator {
/**
* Generates a List of Double values beginning with `start` and ending with
* the last step from `start` which includes the provided `end` value.
**/
public static List<Double> generateSequence(double start, double end, double step) {
Double numValues = (end-start)/step + 1.0;
List<Double> sequence = new ArrayList<Double>(numValues.intValue());
sequence.add(start);
for (int i=1; i < numValues; i++) {
sequence.add(start + step*i);
}
return sequence;
}
/**
* Generates a List of Double values beginning with `start` and ending with
* the last step from `start` which includes the provided `end` value.
*
* Each number in the sequence is rounded to the precision of the `step`
* value. For instance, if step=0.025, values will round to the nearest
* thousandth value (0.001).
**/
public static List<Double> generateSequenceRounded(double start, double end, double step) {
if (step != Math.floor(step)) {
Double numValues = (end-start)/step + 1.0;
List<Double> sequence = new ArrayList<Double>(numValues.intValue());
double fraction = step - Math.floor(step);
double mult = 10;
while (mult*fraction < 1.0) {
mult *= 10;
}
sequence.add(start);
for (int i=1; i < numValues; i++) {
sequence.add(Math.round(mult*(start + step*i))/mult);
}
return sequence;
}
return generateSequence(start, end, step);
}
}
These methods run a simple loop multiplying the step by the sequence index and adding to the start offset. This mitigates compounding floating-point errors which would occur with continuous incrementation (such as adding the step to a variable on each iteration).
I added the generateSequenceRounded method for those cases where a fractional step size can cause noticeable floating-point errors. It does require a bit more arithmetic, so in extremely performance sensitive situations such as ours, it's nice to have the option of using the simpler method when the rounding is unnecessary. I suspect that in most general use cases the rounding overhead would be negligible.
Note that I intentionally excluded logic for handling "abnormal" arguments such as Infinity, NaN, start > end, or a negative step size for simplicity and desire to focus on the question at hand.
Here's some example usage and corresponding output:
System.out.println(DoubleSequenceGenerator.generateSequence(0.0, 2.0, 0.2))
System.out.println(DoubleSequenceGenerator.generateSequenceRounded(0.0, 2.0, 0.2));
System.out.println(DoubleSequenceGenerator.generateSequence(0.0, 102.0, 10.2));
System.out.println(DoubleSequenceGenerator.generateSequenceRounded(0.0, 102.0, 10.2));
[0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6000000000000001, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2000000000000002, 1.4000000000000001, 1.6, 1.8, 2.0]
[0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 1.8, 2.0]
[0.0, 10.2, 20.4, 30.599999999999998, 40.8, 51.0, 61.199999999999996, 71.39999999999999, 81.6, 91.8, 102.0]
[0.0, 10.2, 20.4, 30.6, 40.8, 51.0, 61.2, 71.4, 81.6, 91.8, 102.0]
Is there an existing library that provides this kind of functionality already?
If not, are there any issues with my approach?
Does anyone have a better approach to this?
Sequences can be easily generated using Java 11 Stream API.
The straightforward approach is to use DoubleStream:
public static List<Double> generateSequenceDoubleStream(double start, double end, double step) {
return DoubleStream.iterate(start, d -> d <= end, d -> d + step)
.boxed()
.collect(toList());
}
On ranges with a large number of iterations, double precision error could accumulate resulting in bigger error closer to the end of the range.
The error can be minimised by switching to IntStream and using integers and single double multiplier:
public static List<Double> generateSequenceIntStream(int start, int end, int step, double multiplier) {
return IntStream.iterate(start, i -> i <= end, i -> i + step)
.mapToDouble(i -> i * multiplier)
.boxed()
.collect(toList());
}
To get rid of a double precision error at all, BigDecimal can be used:
public static List<Double> generateSequenceBigDecimal(BigDecimal start, BigDecimal end, BigDecimal step) {
return Stream.iterate(start, d -> d.compareTo(end) <= 0, d -> d.add(step))
.mapToDouble(BigDecimal::doubleValue)
.boxed()
.collect(toList());
}
Examples:
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.println(generateSequenceDoubleStream(0.0, 2.0, 0.2));
//[0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6000000000000001, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.5999999999999999, 1.7999999999999998, 1.9999999999999998]
System.out.println(generateSequenceIntStream(0, 20, 2, 0.1));
//[0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6000000000000001, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2000000000000002, 1.4000000000000001, 1.6, 1.8, 2.0]
System.out.println(generateSequenceBigDecimal(new BigDecimal("0"), new BigDecimal("2"), new BigDecimal("0.2")));
//[0.0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 1.8, 2.0]
}
Method iterate with this signature (3 parameters) was added in Java 9. So, for Java 8 the code looks like
DoubleStream.iterate(start, d -> d + step)
.limit((int) (1 + (end - start) / step))