How to copy Java Collections list

Question

I have an ArrayList and I want to copy it exactly. I use utility classes when possible on the assumption that someone spent some time making it correct. So naturally, I end up with the Collections class which contains a copy method.

Suppose I have the following:

List<String> a = new ArrayList<String>();
a.add("a");
a.add("b");
a.add("c");
List<String> b = new ArrayList<String>(a.size());

Collections.copy(b,a);

This fails because basically it thinks b isn't big enough to hold a. Yes I know b has size 0, but it should be big enough now shouldn't it? If I have to fill b first, then Collections.copy() becomes a completely useless function in my mind. So, except for programming a copy function (which I'm going to do now) is there a proper way to do this?

Answer 1

b has a capacity of 3, but a size of 0. The fact that ArrayList has some sort of buffer capacity is an implementation detail - it's not part of the List interface, so Collections.copy(List, List) doesn't use it. It would be ugly for it to special-case ArrayList.

As MrWiggles has indicated, using the ArrayList constructor which takes a collection is the way to in the example provided.

For more complicated scenarios (which may well include your real code), you may find the collections within Guava useful.