Java: is there a map function?

There is no notion of a function in the JDK as of java 6.

Guava has a Function interface though and the
Collections2.transform(Collection<E>, Function<E,E2>)
method provides the functionality you require.

Example:

// example, converts a collection of integers to their
// hexadecimal string representations
final Collection<Integer> input = Arrays.asList(10, 20, 30, 40, 50);
final Collection<String> output =
    Collections2.transform(input, new Function<Integer, String>(){

        @Override
        public String apply(final Integer input){
            return Integer.toHexString(input.intValue());
        }
    });
System.out.println(output);

Output:

[a, 14, 1e, 28, 32]

---

These days, with Java 8, there is actually a map function, so I'd probably write the code in a more concise way:

Collection<String> hex = input.stream()
                              .map(Integer::toHexString)
                              .collect(Collectors::toList);

Since Java 8, there are some standard options to do this in JDK:

Collection<E> in = ...
Object[] mapped = in.stream().map(e -> doMap(e)).toArray();
// or
List<E> mapped = in.stream().map(e -> doMap(e)).collect(Collectors.toList());

See java.util.Collection.stream() and java.util.stream.Collectors.toList().