Convert list to array in Java [duplicate]

Answer 1

This is works. Kind of.

public static Object[] toArray(List<?> a) {
    Object[] arr = new Object[a.size()];
    for (int i = 0; i < a.size(); i++)
        arr[i] = a.get(i);
    return arr;
}

Then the main method.

public static void main(String[] args) {
    List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>() {{
        add("hello");
        add("world");
    }};
    Object[] arr = toArray(list);
    System.out.println(arr[0]);
}

Answer 2

I came across this code snippet that solves it.

//Creating a sample ArrayList 
List<Long> list = new ArrayList<Long>();

//Adding some long type values
list.add(100l);
list.add(200l);
list.add(300l);

//Converting the ArrayList to a Long
Long[] array = (Long[]) list.toArray(new Long[list.size()]);

//Printing the results
System.out.println(array[0] + " " + array[1] + " " + array[2]);

The conversion works as follows:

1. It creates a new Long array, with the size of the original list
2. It converts the original ArrayList to an array using the newly created one
3. It casts that array into a Long array (Long[]), which I appropriately named 'array'

Answer 3

Try this:

List list = new ArrayList();
list.add("Apple");
list.add("Banana");

Object[] ol = list.toArray();

Answer 4

Best thing I came up without Java 8 was:

public static <T> T[] toArray(List<T> list, Class<T> objectClass) {
    if (list == null) {
        return null;
    }

    T[] listAsArray = (T[]) Array.newInstance(objectClass, list.size());
    list.toArray(listAsArray);
    return listAsArray;
}

If anyone has a better way to do this, please share :)

Answer 5

An alternative in Java 8:

String[] strings = list.stream().toArray(String[]::new);

Since Java 11:

String[] strings = list.toArray(String[]::new);

Answer 6

You can use toArray() api as follows,

ArrayList<String> stringList = new ArrayList<String>();
stringList.add("ListItem1");
stringList.add("ListItem2");
String[] stringArray = new String[stringList.size()];
stringArray = stringList.toArray(stringList);

Values from the array are,

for(String value : stringList)
{
    System.out.println(value);
}