
In the following example, we have simply created an array of length four. The elements of an ArrayList must be a class type (or other reference type). ArrayList does not have the convenient square bracket notation 3. An ArrayList is less efficient than an array 2. Java provides the add() method to add elements in the ArrayList. ArrayList vs Array Why use an array instead of an ArrayList 1. SetRange(Int, ICollection) Copy the elements of a collection into an ArrayList at a given index.


Reverse() Reverse the order of the elements in the ArrayList. We can add elements in an array by using the assignment operator. Repeat(Object, Int) Create a new ArrayList with a value that repeats itself the given int amount of times. We cannot use generics along with array because it is not a convertible type of array.ĪrrayList allows us to store only generic/ type, that's why it is type-safe.Īrray provides a length variable which denotes the length of an array.ĪrrayList provides the size() method to determine the size of ArrayList. We use an iterator to iterate over ArrayList. We use for loop or for each loop to iterate over an array. It automatically converts primitive type to object. We cannot store primitive type in ArrayList. The resize operation in ArrayList slows down the performance.Īn array can store both objects and primitives type. It performs fast in comparison to ArrayList because of fixed size.ĪrrayList is internally backed by the array in Java. We can create an instance of ArrayList without specifying its size. An array is a basic functionality provided by Java, whereas ArrayList is a class of Java. It is mandatory to provide the size of an array while initializing it directly or indirectly. In Java, array and ArrayList are the well-known data structures.

It contains popular classes like Vector, HashTable, and HashMap.Īn array is a fixed-length data structure.ĪrrayList is a variable-length data structure. The ArrayList is a class of Java Collections framework. It serves as a container that holds the constant number of values of the same type. The following table describes the key differences between array and ArrayList: BasisĪn array is a dynamically-created object.
