What is the shortest way to initialize List of strings in java?

Question

I am searching for the shortest way (in code) to initialize list of strings and array of strings, i.e. list/array containing \"s1\", \"s2\", \"s3\" string elements.

Answer 1

I am not familiar with Guava, but almost all solutions mentioned in other answers and using the JDK suffer have some flaws:

1. The Arrays.asList method returns a fixed-size list.

2. {{Double-brace initialization}} is known to create classpath clutter and slow down execution. It also requires one line of code per element.

3. Java 9: the static factory method List.ofreturns a structurally immutable list. Moreover, List.of is value-based, and therefore its contract does not guarantee that it will return a new object each time.

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Here is a Java 8 one-liner for gathering multiple individual objects into an ArrayList, or any collection for that matter.

List<String> list = Stream.of("s1", "s2", "s3").collect(Collectors.toCollection(ArrayList::new));

Note: aioobe's solution of copying a transitory collection (new ArrayList<>(Arrays.asList("s1", "s2", "s3"))) is also excellent.