Java Collections Java 

Let's try to use Arrays.asList() with primitive array:

package com.logicbig.example;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

public class ArraysAsListForPrimitives {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        int[] numbers = {1, 2, 3};
        List<Integer> list = Arrays.asList(numbers);
    }
}

Error:(10, 44) java: incompatible types: inference variable T has incompatible bounds
    equality constraints: java.lang.Integer
    lower bounds: int[]

Why it failed?

Let's see signature of Arrays.asList() method

  public static <T> List<T> asList(T... a) {
        return new ArrayList<>(a);
    }

As seen above Arrays.asList() accept generic type T. Since Java generics work only on reference types (object types), not on primitives, our above example failed.

Since int[] as a whole is an object it can be added as a single element:

package com.logicbig.example;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

public class ArraysAsListForPrimitives {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
      int[] numbers = {1, 2, 3};
      List<int[]> list = Arrays.asList(numbers);
      System.out.println(list);
  }
}

[[I@1d81eb93]

How to fix it?

By using Arrays.setAll() method

package com.logicbig.example;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

public class ArraysAsListForPrimitives2 {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
      int[] numbers ={1, 2, 3} ;
      Integer[] boxed = new Integer[numbers.length];
      Arrays.setAll(boxed, i -> numbers[i]);
      List<Integer> list = Arrays.asList(boxed);
      System.out.println(list);
  }
}

[1, 2, 3]

By adding each element manually

package com.logicbig.example;

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

public class ArraysAsListForPrimitives3 {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
      int[] numbers = {1, 2, 3};
      List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<>();
      Arrays.stream(numbers).forEach(list::add);
      System.out.println(list);
  }
}

[1, 2, 3]

By using IntStream#boxed() method

package com.logicbig.example;

import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.stream.Collectors;

public class ArraysAsListForPrimitives4 {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
      int[] numbers = {1, 2, 3};
      List<Integer> list = Arrays.stream(numbers).boxed().collect(Collectors.toList());
      System.out.println(list);
  }
}

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