toArray question

[Paul Stat]

I'm confused how the following code works, AND prints out all 7 elements of the original collection? I would of thought there would been an excepton at the very least?

import java.util.*;
public class CollectionClass {
    public static void main(String... args) {
        List<String> list = new ArrayList<String>();
        list.add("hello1");
        list.add("hello2");
        list.add("hello3");
        list.add("hello4");
        list.add("hello5");
        list.add("hello6");
        list.add("hello7");        
        String[] sa = new String[3]; // intialise sa to accept 3 String objects
        sa = list.toArray(sa);
        for(String s: sa) {
            System.out.println(s);
        }
    }
}

[Senthil Kumaran]

i suggest you to re look the toarray() and aslist() methods again,.,

[Paul Stat]

Senthil Kumaran wrote: i suggest you to re look the toarray() and aslist() methods again,.,

enlighten me

[Henry Wong]

Paul Stat wrote:

Senthil Kumaran wrote: i suggest you to re look the toarray() and aslist() methods again,.,

enlighten me

No offense, but it takes less than a minute to look it up yourself. Why do we need enlighten you?

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/util/List.html

Henry

[Paul Stat]

Henry Wong wrote:

Paul Stat wrote:

Senthil Kumaran wrote: i suggest you to re look the toarray() and aslist() methods again,.,

enlighten me

No offense, but it takes less than a minute to look it up yourself. Why do we need enlighten you?

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/util/List.html

Henry

Ok fine so it

Returns an array containing all of the elements in this list in proper sequence

But what happens to the original String[] array, is it just subject to the garbage collector?

[Ankit Garg]

Paul Stat wrote:
But what happens to the original String[] array, is it just subject to the garbage collector?

If you are talking about this

String[] sa = new String[3]; // intialise sa to accept 3 String objects

Then yes that string array will be eligible for GC. This is the related statement from the documentation

If the list fits in the specified array, it is returned therein. Otherwise, a new array is allocated with the runtime type of the specified array and the size of this list.