TL;DR
Yes, the order is guaranteed.
Stream.collect() API documentation
The starting place is to look at what determines whether a reduction is concurrent or not. Stream.collect()‘s description says the following:
If the stream is parallel, and the
Collectoris concurrent, and either the stream is unordered or the collector is unordered, then a concurrent reduction will be performed (seeCollectorfor details on concurrent reduction.)
The first condition is satisfied: the stream is parallel. How about the second and third: is the Collector concurrent and unordered?
Collectors.toList() API documentation
toList()‘s documentation reads:
Returns a
Collectorthat accumulates the input elements into a newList. There are no guarantees on the type, mutability, serializability, or thread-safety of theListreturned; if more control over the returnedListis required, usetoCollection(Supplier).Returns:
a Collector which collects all the input elements into a List, in encounter order
An operation that works in encounter order operates on the elements in their original order. This overrides parallelness.
Implementation code
Inspecting the implementation of Collectors.java confirms that toList() does not include the CONCURRENT or UNORDERED traits.
public static <T>
Collector<T, ?, List<T>> toList() {
return new CollectorImpl<>((Supplier<List<T>>) ArrayList::new, List::add,
(left, right) -> { left.addAll(right); return left; },
CH_ID);
}
// ...
static final Set<Collector.Characteristics> CH_ID
= Collections.unmodifiableSet(EnumSet.of(Collector.Characteristics.IDENTITY_FINISH));
Notice how the collector has the CH_ID trait set, which has only the single IDENTITY_FINISH trait. CONCURRENT and UNORDERED are not there, so the reduction cannot be concurrent.
A non-concurrent reduction means that, if the stream is parallel, collection can proceed in parallel, but it will be split into several thread-confined intermediate results which are then combined. This ensures the combined result is in encounter order.
See also: Why parallel stream get collected sequentially in Java 8