Explain the syntax of Collections.emptyList()

Question

I just studied about generic programming, the List interface, and ArrayList, so I can understand the statement below.

Arra         


        

Answer 1

In a nutshell, this creates an empty, immutable list of strings.

Let's look at the expression bit by bit.

Collections is the name of a class. From the Javadoc:

This class consists exclusively of static methods that operate on or return collections. It contains polymorphic algorithms that operate on collections, "wrappers", which return a new collection backed by a specified collection, and a few other odds and ends.

emptyList() is the name of a static method defined in the Collections class (Javadoc). It is a generic method, and the in Collections.emptyList() specifies the generic type argument.

The method returns a List, which in this case is List: a list of strings. More specifically, it returns an empty, immutable list of strings.