Converting List<String> to String[] in Java

java type-conversion
Christian picture Christian · Mar 31, 2010 · Viewed 151.4k times · Source

How do I convert a list of String into an array? The following code returns an error.

public static void main(String[] args) {
    List<String> strlist = new ArrayList<String>();
    strlist.add("sdfs1");
    strlist.add("sdfs2");
    String[] strarray = (String[]) strlist.toArray();       
    System.out.println(strarray);
}

Error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ClassCastException: [Ljava.lang.Object; cannot be cast to [Ljava.lang.String;
    at test.main(test.java:10)

Answer

jjujuma picture jjujuma · Mar 31, 2010

You want

String[] strarray = strlist.toArray(new String[0]);

See here for the documentation and note that you can also call this method in such a way that it populates the passed array, rather than just using it to work out what type to return. Also note that maybe when you print your array you'd prefer

System.out.println(Arrays.toString(strarray));

since that will print the actual elements.

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