Print a Heart Shape in the Console with a One‑Liner Java Stream

Inspired by a Python one‑liner that prints a heart shape, this article demonstrates that the same effect can be achieved in Java using the Stream API. The author provides a compact, functional‑style code example that leverages IntStream.range, map, and nested forEach calls to compute and print each character.

Code Example

IntStream.range(-15, 15)
    .map(y -> -y)
    .forEach(y -> IntStream.range(-30, 30)
        .forEach(x -> System.out.print(
            Math.pow(Math.pow((x * 0.05), 2) + Math.pow((y * 0.1), 2) - 1, 3)
            - Math.pow(x * 0.05, 2) * Math.pow(y * 0.1, 3) <= 0
                ? "love".charAt(Math.abs((y - x) % 4))
                : " " + (x == 29 ? "
" : "")
        )));

The expression evaluates a mathematical formula that defines the heart shape. For each coordinate (x, y) within the defined ranges, it checks whether the point satisfies the heart equation; if it does, a character from the word "love" is printed, otherwise a space is printed. A newline is added at the end of each line.

Result

The output displays a recognizable heart shape made of the characters from the word "love", illustrating how concise functional Java code can produce complex ASCII art.