Initialization of an ArrayList in one line

java collections arraylist initialization

Macarse · Jun 17, 2009 · Viewed 3.1M times · Source

I wanted to create a list of options for testing purposes. At first, I did this:

ArrayList<String> places = new ArrayList<String>();
places.add("Buenos Aires");
places.add("Córdoba");
places.add("La Plata");

Then, I refactored the code as follows:

ArrayList<String> places = new ArrayList<String>(
    Arrays.asList("Buenos Aires", "Córdoba", "La Plata"));

Is there a better way to do this?

Answer

It would be simpler if you were to just declare it as a List - does it have to be an ArrayList?

List<String> places = Arrays.asList("Buenos Aires", "Córdoba", "La Plata");

Or if you have only one element:

List<String> places = Collections.singletonList("Buenos Aires");

This would mean that places is immutable (trying to change it will cause an UnsupportedOperationException exception to be thrown).

To make a mutable list that is a concrete ArrayList you can create an ArrayList from the immutable list:

ArrayList<String> places = new ArrayList<>(Arrays.asList("Buenos Aires", "Córdoba", "La Plata"));