JAVA集合之ArrayList - PART I

首先我们来看下java8之前的版本与java8（以及8之后的版本）在初始化上的差别：

java7：

 public ArrayList(int initialCapacity) {
        super();
        if (initialCapacity < 0)
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Illegal Capacity: "+
                                               initialCapacity);
        this.elementData = new Object[initialCapacity];
    }

    /**
     * Constructs an empty list with an initial capacity of ten.
     */
    public ArrayList() {
        this(10);
    }

    /**
     * Constructs a list containing the elements of the specified
     * collection, in the order they are returned by the collection's
     * iterator.
     *
     * @param c the collection whose elements are to be placed into this list
     * @throws NullPointerException if the specified collection is null
     */
    public ArrayList(Collection<? extends E> c) {
        elementData = c.toArray();
        size = elementData.length;
        // c.toArray might (incorrectly) not return Object[] (see 6260652)
        if (elementData.getClass() != Object[].class)
            elementData = Arrays.copyOf(elementData, size, Object[].class);
    }

java 8：

public ArrayList(int initialCapacity) {
        super();
        if (initialCapacity < 0)
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Illegal Capacity: "+
                                               initialCapacity);
        this.elementData = new Object[initialCapacity];
    }

    /**
     * Constructs an empty list with an initial capacity of ten.
     */
    public ArrayList() {
        super();
        this.elementData = EMPTY_ELEMENTDATA;
    }

    /**
     * Constructs a list containing the elements of the specified
     * collection, in the order they are returned by the collection's
     * iterator.
     *
     * @param c the collection whose elements are to be placed into this list
     * @throws NullPointerException if the specified collection is null
     */
    public ArrayList(Collection<? extends E> c) {
        elementData = c.toArray();
        size = elementData.length;
        // c.toArray might (incorrectly) not return Object[] (see 6260652)
        if (elementData.getClass() != Object[].class)
            elementData = Arrays.copyOf(elementData, size, Object[].class);
    }

我们在java 8的代码中看到如下注释：

     /**
     * Default initial capacity.
     */
    private static final int DEFAULT_CAPACITY = 10;

    /**
     * The array buffer into which the elements of the ArrayList are stored.
     * The capacity of the ArrayList is the length of this array buffer. Any
     * empty ArrayList with elementData == EMPTY_ELEMENTDATA will be expanded to
     * DEFAULT_CAPACITY when the first element is added.
     */
    transient Object[] elementData; // non-private to simplify nested class access

由此我们可见ArrayList的默认长度在java 8之前是10，在java 8及之后版本是0。在java 8及之后的版本中，当第一个元素被加到ArrayList对象中时（默认长度），ArrayList的长度此时被默认扩展到10。我们可以称之为惰性初始化。而这种改变的目的是为了节省内存。