Adding groups of elements
There are utility methods in both the Arrays and Collections classes in java.util that add groups of elements to a Collection. Arrays.asList( ) takes either an array or a comma-separated list of elements (using varargs) and turns it into a List object. Collections.addAll( ) takes a Collection object and either an array or a comma-separated list and adds the elements to the Collection. Here’s an example that shows both methods, as well as the more conventional addAll( ) method that’s part of all Collection types:
//: holding/AddingGroups.java
// Adding groups of elements to Collection objects.
import java.util.*;
public class AddingGroups {
public static void main(String[] args) {
Collection<Integer> collection =
new ArrayList<Integer>(Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5));
Integer[] moreInts = { 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 };
collection.addAll(Arrays.asList(moreInts));
// Runs significantly faster, but you can’t
// construct a Collection this way:
Collections.addAll(collection, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15);
Collections.addAll(collection, moreInts);
// Produces a list "backed by" an array:
List<Integer> list = Arrays.asList(16, 17, 18, 19, 20);
list.set(1, 99); // OK -- modify an element
// list.add(21); // Runtime error because the
// underlying array cannot be resized.
}
} ///:~
The constructor for a Collection can accept another Collection which it uses for initializing itself, so you can use Arrays.asList( ) to produce input for the constructor. However, Collections.addAll( ) runs much faster, and it’s just as easy to construct the Collection with no elements and then call Collections.addAll( ), so this is the preferred approach.
The Collection.addAll( ) member method can only take an argument of another Collection object, so it is not as flexible as Arrays.asList( ) or Collections.addAll( ), which use variable argument lists.
It’s also possible to use the output of Arrays.asList( ) directly, as a List, but the underlying representation in this case is the array, which cannot be resized. If you try to add( ) or delete( ) elements in such a list, that would attempt to change the size of an array, so you’ll get an "Unsupported Operation" error at run time.
[Thinking in Java, 279]
