Convert List to Array in Java

Convert list to array in Java

Either:

Foo[] array = list.toArray(new Foo[0]);

or:

Foo[] array = new Foo[list.size()];
list.toArray(array); // fill the array

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Note that this works only for arrays of reference types. For arrays of primitive types, use the traditional way:

List<Integer> list = ...;
int[] array = new int[list.size()];
for(int i = 0; i < list.size(); i++) array[i] = list.get(i);

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Update:

It is recommended now to use list.toArray(new Foo[0]);, not list.toArray(new Foo[list.size()]);.

From JetBrains Intellij Idea inspection:

There are two styles to convert a collection to an array: either using
a pre-sized array (like c.toArray(new String[c.size()])) or
using an empty array (like c.toArray(new String[0]).

In
older Java versions using pre-sized array was recommended, as the
reflection call which is necessary to create an array of proper size
was quite slow. However since late updates of OpenJDK 6 this call
was intrinsified, making the performance of the empty array version
the same and sometimes even better, compared to the pre-sized
version. Also passing pre-sized array is dangerous for a concurrent or
synchronized collection as a data race is possible between the
size and toArray call which may result in extra nulls
at the end of the array, if the collection was concurrently shrunk
during the operation.

This inspection allows to follow the
uniform style: either using an empty array (which is recommended in
modern Java) or using a pre-sized array (which might be faster in
older Java versions or non-HotSpot based JVMs).

How can I convert List<Integer> to int[] in Java?

Unfortunately, I don't believe there really is a better way of doing this due to the nature of Java's handling of primitive types, boxing, arrays and generics. In particular:

• List<T>.toArray won't work because there's no conversion from Integer to int
• You can't use int as a type argument for generics, so it would have to be an int-specific method (or one which used reflection to do nasty trickery).

I believe there are libraries which have autogenerated versions of this kind of method for all the primitive types (i.e. there's a template which is copied for each type). It's ugly, but that's the way it is I'm afraid :(

Even though the Arrays class came out before generics arrived in Java, it would still have to include all the horrible overloads if it were introduced today (assuming you want to use primitive arrays).

Array to List or List to Array, which conversion is faster?

Arrays.asList is faster because it does not copy data - it returns an object wrapping the array passed to it, and implementing the List interface. Collection.toArray() copies the data to the array, so it runs in O(N) instead of O(1).

Convert ArrayList<String> to String[] array

Use like this.

List<String> stockList = new ArrayList<String>();
stockList.add("stock1");
stockList.add("stock2");

String[] stockArr = new String[stockList.size()];
stockArr = stockList.toArray(stockArr);

for(String s : stockArr)
    System.out.println(s);

How to convert List of int array to 2D Array?

Try this.

List<int[]> list = List.of(
    new int[] {7, 0}, new int[] {7, 1},
    new int[] {6, 1}, new int[] {5, 0},
    new int[] {5, 2}, new int[] {4, 4});
int[][] res = list.stream().toArray(int[][]::new);
System.out.println(Arrays.deepToString(res));

result

[[7, 0], [7, 1], [6, 1], [5, 0], [5, 2], [4, 4]]

See this code run live at IdeOne.com.

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