Java Programming Language: How to Retrieve an Element From an ArrayList

Hi everyone, welcome back. In this example, we will be going over how to retrieve a specific element from an arraylist in Java. Arraylists can be used to store a collection of data, similar to that of an array. The key difference between an arraylist and an array is that the arraylist is resizable whereas the array is not. This leaves the arraylist as a great choice when wanting to modify a collection of data. With this introduction out of the way, let’s get into it.

Creating And Populating ArrayList

Let’s start by creating and populating our arraylist. Before we can create the arraylist, we need to make sure we have our arraylist import, which is included within the java.util package:

import java.util.ArrayList;

Now, we can create and populate our arraylist:

ArrayList<String> myArrList = new ArrayList<String>();
myArrList.add("One");
myArrList.add("Two");
myArrList.add("Three");
System.out.println(myArrList);
Output:
[One, Two, Three]

We have now successfully created and populated our arraylist.

Retrieving a Specific Element From an ArrayList