Working with a List of Lists in Java

2    Asked by NehaTambe in Java , Asked on Apr 29, 2025

A List of Lists in Java allows you to create a collection of lists, making it ideal for managing multi-dimensional data. This can be useful for tasks such as handling tables, matrices, or nested data structures.

Answered by Parth Joshi

Working with a List of Lists in Java involves using nested List objects, where each element of the outer list is itself a list. This is useful for representing multi-dimensional data structures, such as tables or matrices.

Here’s how you can work with a List of Lists in Java:

Declare a List of Lists: To declare a List of Lists, you typically use the List> syntax. For example:

  List> listOfLists = new ArrayList<>();

Add Lists to the List of Lists: You can add lists as elements of the main list. For example:

List innerList1 = Arrays.asList(1, 2, 3);
List innerList2 = Arrays.asList(4, 5, 6);
listOfLists.add(innerList1);
listOfLists.add(innerList2);

Access Elements in a List of Lists: You can access elements using the indices of both the outer and inner lists:

  int element = listOfLists.get(0).get(1);  // Access element 2 from the first list

Iterate Over List of Lists: You can loop through the outer list and then loop through each inner list:

for (List innerList : listOfLists) {
    for (Integer num : innerList) {
        System.out.println(num);
    }
}

Benefits:

  • Flexibility: Allows you to store and manage nested data efficiently.
  • Scalability: You can dynamically add or remove lists at runtime.
  • Data Organization: Perfect for storing matrices, tables, or hierarchical data.

In summary, a List of Lists in Java provides an easy way to organize multi-dimensional data and can be manipulated using standard list operations.



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