map() takes a Stream and transform it to another Stream. It applies a function on each element of Stream and store return value into new Stream. It does not flatten the stream. But flatMap() is the combination of a map and a flat operation i.e, it applies a function to elements as well as flatten them. 2) map() is used for transformation only, but flatMap() is used for both transformation and flattening. please read more here. https://javaint4bytes.blogspot.com/2022/11/stream-flatmap-in-java-with-examples.html

Oracle关于Optional的文章强调了map和flatmap的区别:

String version = computer.map(Computer::getSoundcard)
                  .map(Soundcard::getUSB)
                  .map(USB::getVersion)
                  .orElse("UNKNOWN");

Unfortunately, this code doesn't compile. Why? The variable computer is of type Optional<Computer>, so it is perfectly correct to call the map method. However, getSoundcard() returns an object of type Optional. This means the result of the map operation is an object of type Optional<Optional<Soundcard>>. As a result, the call to getUSB() is invalid because the outermost Optional contains as its value another Optional, which of course doesn't support the getUSB() method. With streams, the flatMap method takes a function as an argument, which returns another stream. This function is applied to each element of a stream, which would result in a stream of streams. However, flatMap has the effect of replacing each generated stream by the contents of that stream. In other words, all the separate streams that are generated by the function get amalgamated or "flattened" into one single stream. What we want here is something similar, but we want to "flatten" a two-level Optional into one. Optional also supports a flatMap method. Its purpose is to apply the transformation function on the value of an Optional (just like the map operation does) and then flatten the resulting two-level Optional into a single one. So, to make our code correct, we need to rewrite it as follows using flatMap:

String version = computer.flatMap(Computer::getSoundcard)
                   .flatMap(Soundcard::getUSB)
                   .map(USB::getVersion)
                   .orElse("UNKNOWN");

第一个flatMap确保返回Optional<Soundcard> 而不是一个Optional<Optional<Soundcard>>，和第二个flatMap 实现相同的目的，返回Optional<USB>。注意 第三个调用只需要一个map()，因为getVersion()返回一个 字符串而不是可选对象。

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/java/java8-optional-2175753.html

流。flatMap，顾名思义，是映射和平面操作的组合。这意味着您首先将一个函数应用到元素上，然后将其压平。流。Map仅将函数应用于流，而不会将流平展。

为了理解流的扁平化是由什么组成的，考虑一个像[[1,2,3]，[4,5,6]，[7,8,9]]这样的结构，它有“两个层次”。扁平化意味着将其转换为“一级”结构:[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9]。

map和flatMap都可以应用于一个<T>的流，它们都返回一个<R>的流。不同之处在于map操作为每个输入值生成一个输出值，而flatMap操作为每个输入值生成任意数量(零个或多个)值。

这反映在每个操作的参数中。

map操作接受一个函数，该函数针对输入流中的每个值被调用，并产生一个结果值，该结果值被发送到输出流。

The flatMap operation takes a function that conceptually wants to consume one value and produce an arbitrary number of values. However, in Java, it's cumbersome for a method to return an arbitrary number of values, since methods can return only zero or one value. One could imagine an API where the mapper function for flatMap takes a value and returns an array or a List of values, which are then sent to the output. Given that this is the streams library, a particularly apt way to represent an arbitrary number of return values is for the mapper function itself to return a stream! The values from the stream returned by the mapper are drained from the stream and are passed to the output stream. The "clumps" of values returned by each call to the mapper function are not distinguished at all in the output stream, thus the output is said to have been "flattened."

典型的用法是flatMap的mapper函数返回Stream.empty()，如果它想发送零值，或者类似于Stream。(a, b, c)如果它想返回几个值。当然，任何流都可以返回。

我有一种感觉，这里的大多数答案都把简单的问题复杂化了。如果你已经理解了地图是如何工作的，那就很容易掌握了。

在使用map()时，有些情况下我们可能会得到不需要的嵌套结构，flatMap()方法的设计是通过避免换行来克服这一问题。

例子:

1

List<List<Integer>> result = Stream.of(Arrays.asList(1), Arrays.asList(2, 3))
  .collect(Collectors.toList());

我们可以使用flatMap来避免使用嵌套列表:

List<Integer> result = Stream.of(Arrays.asList(1), Arrays.asList(2, 3))
  .flatMap(i -> i.stream())
  .collect(Collectors.toList());

2

Optional<Optional<String>> result = Optional.of(42)
      .map(id -> findById(id));

Optional<String> result = Optional.of(42)
      .flatMap(id -> findById(id));

地点:

private Optional<String> findById(Integer id)

对于Map，我们有一个元素列表和一个(函数，动作)f，这样:

[a,b,c] f(x) => [f(a),f(b),f(c)]

对于平面映射，我们有一个元素列表，我们有一个(function,action) f，我们希望结果是扁平的:

[[a,b],[c,d,e]] f(x) =>[f(a),f(b),f(c),f(d),f(e)]