Type List VS Type Arraylist in Java

Type List vs type ArrayList in Java

Almost always List is preferred over ArrayList because, for instance, List can be translated into a LinkedList without affecting the rest of the codebase.

If one used ArrayList instead of List, it's hard to change the ArrayList implementation into a LinkedList one because ArrayList specific methods have been used in the codebase that would also require restructuring.

You can read about the List implementations here.

You may start with an ArrayList, but soon after discover that another implementation is the more appropriate choice.

What is the difference between List and ArrayList?

There's no difference between list implementations in both of your examples.
There's however a difference in a way you can further use variable myList in your code.

When you define your list as:

List myList = new ArrayList();

you can only call methods and reference members that are defined in the List interface.
If you define it as:

ArrayList myList = new ArrayList();

you'll be able to invoke ArrayList-specific methods and use ArrayList-specific members in addition to those whose definitions are inherited from List.

Nevertheless, when you call a method of a List interface in the first example, which was implemented in ArrayList, the method from ArrayList will be called (because the List interface doesn't implement any methods).

That's called polymorphism. You can read up on it.

Should I use ArrayList<?> or List<?>

For the handling of objects collection in Java, Collection interface have been provided. This is available in java.util package.

"List" is an interface, which extends collection interface, provides some sort of extra methods than collection interface to work with collections. Where as "ArrayList" is the actual implementation of "List" interface.

The ArrayList class has only a few methods in addition to the methods available in the List interface. There is not much difference in this. The only difference is, you are creating a reference of the parent interface in the first one and a reference of the class which implements the List (i.e) the ArrayList class in the second. If u use the first, you will be able to call the methods available in the List interface and you cannot make calls to the new methods available in the ArrayList class.Where as, if you use the second one, you are free to use all the methods available in the ArrayList.

EDIT:

In Java Applications development, when you are supposed to pass the collection framework objects as arguments to the methods, then it is better to go with

List tempList = new ArrayList();
somemethodcall(tempList);

because, in future due to performance constraints, if you are changing the implementation to use linkedlist or some other classes which implements List interface, instead of ArrayList, you can change at only one point (i.e) only the instantiation part. Else you will be supposed to change at all the areas, where ever, you have used the specific class implementation as method arguments.

ArrayList or List declaration in Java

List<String> arrayList = new ArrayList<String>();

Is generic where you want to hide implementation details while returning it to client, at later point of time you may change implementation from ArrayList to LinkedList transparently.

This mechanism is useful in cases where you design libraries etc., which may change their implementation details at some point of time with minimal changes on client side.

ArrayList<String> arrayList = new ArrayList<String>();

This mandates you always need to return ArrayList. At some point of time if you would like to change implementation details to LinkedList, there should be changes on client side also to use LinkedList instead of ArrayList.

List versus ArrayList as reference type?

If you use the first form, you are saying all you are ever going to use is the functionality of the List interface - nothing else, especially nothing extra added by any implementation of it. This means you can easily change the implementation used (e.g. just substitute LinkedList for ArrayList in the instantiation), and not worry about it breaking the rest of the code because you might have used something specific to ArrayList.

Polymorphism: Why use List list = new ArrayList instead of ArrayList list = new ArrayList?

The main reason you'd do this is to decouple your code from a specific implementation of the interface. When you write your code like this:

List list = new ArrayList();  

the rest of your code only knows that data is of type List, which is preferable because it allows you to switch between different implementations of the List interface with ease.

For instance, say you were writing a fairly large 3rd party library, and say that you decided to implement the core of your library with a LinkedList. If your library relies heavily on accessing elements in these lists, then eventually you'll find that you've made a poor design decision; you'll realize that you should have used an ArrayList (which gives O(1) access time) instead of a LinkedList (which gives O(n) access time). Assuming you have been programming to an interface, making such a change is easy. You would simply change the instance of List from,

List list = new LinkedList();

to

List list = new ArrayList();  

and you know that this will work because you have written your code to follow the contract provided by the List interface.

On the other hand, if you had implemented the core of your library using LinkedList list = new LinkedList(), making such a change wouldn't be as easy, as there is no guarantee that the rest of your code doesn't make use of methods specific to the LinkedList class.

All in all, the choice is simply a matter of design... but this kind of design is very important (especially when working on large projects), as it will allow you to make implementation-specific changes later without breaking existing code.

Reason for - List list = new ArrayList();

When someone writes code like this, he/she is trying to follow a basic OO design principle which says -

Program to an interface, not to a concrete implementation

I have explained this principle in one of my blog posts. Look in the Class Inheritance VS Interface Inheritance section.

To summarize the post, when you use a reference of a parent type to refer to an instance of a sub-type, you get a lot of flexibility. For example, if you ever need to change your sub-type implementation in the future, you will be able to do that easily, without changing much of your code.

Consider the following method -

public void DoSomeStuff(Super s) {
    s.someMethod();
}

and a call to this method -

DoSomeStuff(new Sub());

now, if you ever need to change the logic inside someMethod, you can easily do it by declaring a new subtype of Super, say NewSubType, and changing the logic inside that implementation. In this way, you will never have to touch other existing code which utilizes that method. You will still be able to use your DoSomeStuff method in the following way -

DoSomeStuff(new NewSubType());

Had you declared the parameter of DoSomeStuff to be of Sub, you would then have to change its implementation too -

DoSomeStuff(NewSubType s) {
    s.someMethod();
}

and it may also chain/bubble to several other places.

In terms of your collection example, this lets you change the list implementation that a variable is pointing to without much hassle. You can easily use a LinkedList in place of an ArrayList.

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