Fastest way to get the first n elements of a List into an Array
What is the fastest way to get the first n elements of a list stored in an array?
Considering this as the scenario:
int n = 10;
ArrayList<String> in = new ArrayList<>();
for(int i = 0; i < (n+10); i++)
in.add("foobar");
Option 1:
String[] out = new String[n];
for(int i = 0; i< n; i++)
out[i]=in.get(i);
Option 2:
String[] out = (String[]) (in.subList(0, n)).toArray();
Option 3: Is there a faster way? Maybe with Java8-streams?
Assumption:
list - List<String>
Using Java 8 Streams,
-
to get first N elements from a list into a list,
List<String> firstNElementsList = list.stream().limit(n).collect(Collectors.toList());
-
to get first N elements from a list into an Array,
String[] firstNElementsArray = list.stream().limit(n).collect(Collectors.toList()).toArray(new String[n]);
Option 1 Faster Than Option 2
Because Option 2 creates a new List
reference, and then creates an n
element array from the List
(option 1 perfectly sizes the output array). However, first you need to fix the off by one bug. Use <
(not <=
). Like,
String[] out = new String[n];
for(int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
out[i] = in.get(i);
}