Lists

Dynamic arrays that can grow or shrink in size. More flexible than regular arrays.

Properties

• Dynamic size: Can grow or shrink during runtime.
• Maintains order: Elements stay in the order added.
• Allows duplicates: Repeated values are permitted.

Operations

• Access: Directly get an element by its index.
• Insertion: Add an element at the end or at a specific position.
• Update: Change the value of an element at a given index.
• Deletion: Remove an element from the end or from a specific position.

Advantages

• Dynamic sizing: List can grow or shrink as needed.
• Automatic insertion and deletion: Adding or removing elements will shift other elements.

Disadvantages

• More memory overhead: Lists use extra memory compared to arrays because they store additional information (like capacity, size, and references for dynamic resizing) to support flexible operations.

Example

import java.util.ArrayList;

// List of strings
ArrayList<String> students = new ArrayList<>();

// Insert elements
students.add("Sher");
students.add("Riaaz");
students.add("Rishika");
students.add("Sem");

// Get number of elements
System.out.println(students.size()); // Prints 4

// Accessing an element
System.out.println(students.get(0)); // Prints "Sher"

// Updating an element
students.set(0, "Sherreskly"); // Updates "Sher" to "Sherreskly"
System.out.println(students.get(0));

// Deleting an element
students.remove(1); // Removes "Riaaz"
System.out.println(students.get(1)); // Prints "Rishika"