Java Program to Iterate over an ArrayList

To understand this example, you should have the knowledge of the following Java programming topics:


Example 1: Iterate through ArrayList using for loop

import java.util.ArrayList;

class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // Creating an array list
    ArrayList<String> languages = new ArrayList<>();
    languages.add("Java");
    languages.add("JavaScript");
    languages.add("Python");
    System.out.println("ArrayList: " + languages);

    // Using for loop
    System.out.println("Iterating over ArrayList using for loop: ");

    for(int i = 0; i < languages.size(); i++) {
      System.out.print(languages.get(i));
      System.out.print(", ");
    }
  }
}

Output

ArrayList: [Java, JavaScript, Python]
Iterating over ArrayList using for loop:
Java, JavaScript, Python,

In the above example, we have created an arraylist named languages. Here, we have used the for loop to access each element of the arraylist.


Example 2: Iterate through ArrayList using for-each loop

import java.util.ArrayList;

class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // Creating an array list
    ArrayList<String> languages = new ArrayList<>();
    languages.add("Java");
    languages.add("JavaScript");
    languages.add("Python");
    System.out.println("ArrayList: " + languages);

        // Using forEach loop
    System.out.println("Iterating over ArrayList using for-each loop:");
    for(String language : languages) {
      System.out.print(language);
      System.out.print(", ");
    }
  }
}

Output

ArrayList: [Java, JavaScript, Python]
Iterating over ArrayList using for-each loop:
Java, JavaScript, Python,

Here, we have used the for-each loop to iterate over the ArrayList and print each element.


Example 3: Iterate over ArrayList using listIterator()

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.ListIterator;

class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // Creating an ArrayList
    ArrayList<Integer> numbers = new ArrayList<>();
    numbers.add(1);
    numbers.add(3);
    numbers.add(2);
    System.out.println("ArrayList: " + numbers);

    // Creating an instance of ListIterator
    ListIterator<Integer> iterate = numbers.listIterator();
    System.out.println("Iterating over ArrayList:");
    while(iterate.hasNext()) {
      System.out.print(iterate.next() + ", ");
    }
  }
}

Output

ArrayList: [1, 3, 2]
Iterating over ArrayList:
1, 3, 2,

In the above example, we have used the listIterator() method to iterate over the arraylist. Here,

  • hasNext() - returns true if there is next element in the arraylist
  • next() - returns the next element of the arraylist

Note: We can also use the ArrayList iterator() method and the ArrayList forEach() method to iterate over the arraylist.

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