How might I convert an ArrayList<String>
object to a String[]
array in Java?
toArray(T[])
and similar in syntax to Stream.toArray
.
List<String> list = ..;
String[] array = list.toArray(new String[0]);
For example:
List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
//add some stuff
list.add("android");
list.add("apple");
String[] stringArray = list.toArray(new String[0]);
The toArray()
method without passing any argument returns Object[]
. So you have to pass an array as an argument, which will be filled with the data from the list, and returned. You can pass an empty array as well, but you can also pass an array with the desired size.
Important update: Originally the code above used new String[list.size()]
. However, this blogpost reveals that due to JVM optimizations, using new String[0]
is better now.
An alternative in Java 8:
String[] strings = list.stream().toArray(String[]::new);
Java 11+:
String[] strings = list.toArray(String[]::new);
toArray
on a Stream
object. This compilation error may occur if you reduce the stream using a Collectors
and then try to apply toArray
.
String[]::new
is equivalent to () -> new String[]
. But the given interface method expects an integer. Shouldn't it be (list.size()) -> new String[]
, so String[list.size()]::new
?
String[]::new
is equivalent to i -> new String[i]
. See stackoverflow.com/questions/29447561/…
You can use the toArray()
method for List
:
ArrayList<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
list.add("apple");
list.add("banana");
String[] array = list.toArray(new String[list.size()]);
Or you can manually add the elements to an array:
ArrayList<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
list.add("apple");
list.add("banana");
String[] array = new String[list.size()];
for (int i = 0; i < list.size(); i++) {
array[i] = list.get(i);
}
Hope this helps!
Starting from Java-11, one can use the API Collection.toArray(IntFunction<T[]> generator)
to achieve the same as:
List<String> list = List.of("x","y","z");
String[] arrayBeforeJDK11 = list.toArray(new String[0]);
String[] arrayAfterJDK11 = list.toArray(String[]::new); // similar to Stream.toArray
ArrayList<String> arrayList = new ArrayList<String>();
Object[] objectList = arrayList.toArray();
String[] stringArray = Arrays.copyOf(objectList,objectList.length,String[].class);
Using copyOf, ArrayList to arrays might be done also.
In Java 8:
String[] strings = list.parallelStream().toArray(String[]::new);
parallelStream()
instead of simply stream()
?
In Java 8, it can be done using
String[] arrayFromList = fromlist.stream().toArray(String[]::new);
If your application is already using Apache Commons lib, you can slightly modify the accepted answer to not create a new empty array each time:
List<String> list = ..;
String[] array = list.toArray(ArrayUtils.EMPTY_STRING_ARRAY);
// or if using static import
String[] array = list.toArray(EMPTY_STRING_ARRAY);
There are a few more preallocated empty arrays of different types in ArrayUtils
.
Also we can trick JVM to create en empty array for us this way:
String[] array = list.toArray(ArrayUtils.toArray());
// or if using static import
String[] array = list.toArray(toArray());
But there's really no advantage this way, just a matter of taste, IMO.
You can use Iterator<String>
to iterate the elements of the ArrayList<String>
:
ArrayList<String> list = new ArrayList<>();
String[] array = new String[list.size()];
int i = 0;
for (Iterator<String> iterator = list.iterator(); iterator.hasNext(); i++) {
array[i] = iterator.next();
}
Now you can retrive elements from String[]
using any Loop.
.toString()
where no explicit cast would be needed, 3. you don't even increment i
, and 4. the while
would be better off replaced by a for
. Suggested code: ArrayList<String> stringList = ... ; String[] stringArray = new String[stringList.size()]; int i = 0; for(Iterator<String> it = stringList.iterator(); it.hasNext(); i++) { stringArray[i] = it.next(); }
Generics solution to covert any List<Type>
to String []
:
public static <T> String[] listToArray(List<T> list) {
String [] array = new String[list.size()];
for (int i = 0; i < array.length; i++)
array[i] = list.get(i).toString();
return array;
}
Note You must override toString()
method.
class Car {
private String name;
public Car(String name) {
this.name = name;
}
public String toString() {
return name;
}
}
final List<Car> carList = new ArrayList<Car>();
carList.add(new Car("BMW"))
carList.add(new Car("Mercedes"))
carList.add(new Car("Skoda"))
final String[] carArray = listToArray(carList);
List <String> list = ...
String[] array = new String[list.size()];
int i=0;
for(String s: list){
array[i++] = s;
}
in case some extra manipulation of the data is desired, for which the user wants a function, this approach is not perfect (as it requires passing the class of the element as second parameter), but works:
import java.util.ArrayList; import java.lang.reflect.Array;
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
ArrayList<Integer> al = new ArrayList<>();
al.add(1);
al.add(2);
Integer[] arr = convert(al, Integer.class);
for (int i=0; i<arr.length; i++)
System.out.println(arr[i]);
}
public static <T> T[] convert(ArrayList<T> al, Class clazz) {
return (T[]) al.toArray((T[])Array.newInstance(clazz, al.size()));
}
}
In Java 11, we can use the Collection.toArray(generator)
method. The following code will create a new array of strings:
List<String> list = List.of("one", "two", "three");
String[] array = list.toArray(String[]::new)
from java.base's java.util.Collection.toArray()
.
List<String> list = new ArrayList<>();
list.add("a");
list.add("b");
list.add("c");
String [] strArry= list.stream().toArray(size -> new String[size]);
Per comments, I have added a paragraph to explain how the conversion works. First, List is converted to a String stream. Then it uses Stream.toArray to convert the elements in the stream to an Array. In the last statement above "size -> new String[size]" is actually an IntFunction function that allocates a String array with the size of the String stream. The statement is identical to
IntFunction<String []> allocateFunc = size -> {
return new String[size];
};
String [] strArry= list.stream().toArray(allocateFunc);
You can convert List to String array by using this method:
Object[] stringlist=list.toArray();
The complete example:
ArrayList<String> list=new ArrayList<>();
list.add("Abc");
list.add("xyz");
Object[] stringlist=list.toArray();
for(int i = 0; i < stringlist.length ; i++)
{
Log.wtf("list data:",(String)stringlist[i]);
}
private String[] prepareDeliveryArray(List<DeliveryServiceModel> deliveryServices) {
String[] delivery = new String[deliveryServices.size()];
for (int i = 0; i < deliveryServices.size(); i++) {
delivery[i] = deliveryServices.get(i).getName();
}
return delivery;
}
Success story sharing
Class
object, which seems to be completely impossible to derive from the generic type. The reason for this, as I said, is that the whole construction is fake; it's all just stored as Object internally.