List Implementations in java

Being a Collection subtype all methods in the Collection interface are also available in the List interface.

Since List is an interface you need to instantiate a concrete implementation of the interface in order to use it. You can choose between the following List implementations in the Java Collections API:

 

• java.util.Vector
  Vectors(Java 1.1) (Click on link to see tutorial on it)
  --uses array to implement list
• java.util.ArrayList
  ArrayList (Click on link to see tutorial on it)
  --uses array to implement List
  – not thread-safe, otherwise same as Vector
• java.util.LinkedList
  LinkedList  (Click on link to see tutorial on it)
  --List interface implemented as a doubly-linked list
  – access to elements is not constant time
  – better performance for frequent add/remove operations in middle of List
• java.util.Stack
  Stack

There are also List implementations in the java.util.concurrent package, which we will see later.

Here are a few examples of how to create a List instance:

List listA = new ArrayList();
List listB = new LinkedList();
List listC = new Vector();
List listD = new Stack();