What is the difference between Collections.emptyList() and Collections.EMPTY_LIST

Question

In Java, we have Collections.emptyList() and Collections.EMPTY_LIST. Both have the same property:

Returns the empty list (immutable). This list is ser

Answer 1

• Collections.EMPTY_LIST returns an old-style List
• Collections.emptyList() uses type-inference and therefore returns List

Collections.emptyList() was added in Java 1.5 and it is probably always preferable. This way, you don't need to unnecessarily cast around within your code.

Collections.emptyList() intrinsically does the cast for you.

@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
public static final  List emptyList() {
    return (List) EMPTY_LIST;
}