Java: Get first item from a collection

Question

If I have a collection, such as Collection strs, how can I get the first item out? I could just call an Iterator, take its first

Answer 1

There is no such a thing as "first" item in a Collection because it is .. well simply a collection.

From the Java doc's Collection.iterator() method:

There are no guarantees concerning the order in which the elements are returned...

So you can't.

If you use another interface such as List, you can do the following:

String first = strs.get(0);

But directly from a Collection this is not possible.