

Autoboxing internally converts primitive to its equivalent objects. The answer is the autoboxing capability of JVM. Then how can we store integer values in an ArrayList? On the other hand, an ArrayList cannot store primitive types it can only store objects of the same type. PrimitivesĪn array can store both primitive and object types of elements. Addition in ArrayList creates a new array in the background and copy elements from old to a new array. Get() operation: For index-based access, both ArrayList and array have the same performance, as this requires constant time.Īdd() operation: Here, we see the key difference as adding a new element in ArrayList requires two operations internally: Copy and resize. Resize() operation: ArrayList uses automatic resize, where a temporary array is created to copy elements from the old array to a new array. This is because storing similar objects require more memory than storing similar primitive type variables. Depending on the operations you are performing, the performance of Array and ArrayList will vary:ĪrrayList requires more memory for storage purposes compared to an array. We see performance differences in terms of CPU time and memory utilization. This is because of the storage type and functionality of the ArrayList. It would help if you imported package to use ArrayList() method to create ArrayList object.Īlthough ArrayList is basically based on Array, we see performance differences between them. Actually, ArrayList is implemented using an array in Java. An ArrayList is a dynamic data structure where items can be added and removed from the list. ImplementationĪn array is a data structure where we can store elements of a given fixed size of a similar type. While removing items form ArrayList, we are assigning null to the index whose value is removed, and the whole index value is downgraded by one automatically. You can add or remove items from the list at your convenience. On the other hand, ArrayList is flexible in size. Therefore, a normal array in Java is a static data structure because the initial size of the array is fixed. Once you have defined the size of the array, you cannot change the value of its size.

FlexibilityĪn array is a static data structure. Key Differences between Array and ArrayList in Javaīelow are the key differences between Array vs ArrayList: 1. Given below are the top differences between Array vs ArrayList: Here I have shared one example that will help you to understand the working of array and arraylist.Head to Head differences between Array and ArrayList (Infographics) ArrayList elements are not stored at contiguous memory locations. Storage Array elements are stored at contiguous memory locations. Dimension Array can be single as well as multi-dimensional.

ArralyList provides various ways for iteration like loops, Iterator and ListIterator class. Iteration We can iterate through array using loops only.

ArrayList can contain elements of different types. Element Type Array can contain elements of same type. Each time an element is added or removed, a new array is created. ArrayList internally uses dynamic array for storing elements. ArrayList performance is less and uses more memory as compared to Array. Performance Array provides better performance and uses less memory. This process of conversion is called auto-boxing. When we try to add a primitive type element in arraylist then the element is first converted into its corresponding wrapper class and then added. Primitives Array can contain primitive data types as well as objects. For example when we add or remove element in arraylist, its size increases or decreases accordingly. ArrayList size can be changed after declaration. Once declared, its size can’t be changed. Image Source Difference between Array and ArrayList in Java Property Array ArrayList Size Array is fixed in size.
