how to return list in java

To return a list in Java, you can use the return statement in a method. The return statement causes the method to exit and provides a value back to the calling code.

Java provides several classes in the java.util package that implement the List interface, such as ArrayList and LinkedList. You can use any of these classes to create a list and return it from a method.

Here is an example of how you can return a list in Java:

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

class Main {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    List<String> names = getNames();
    for (String name : names) {
      System.out.println(name);
    }
  }

  public static List<String> getNames() {
    List<String> names = new ArrayList<>();
    names.add("Alice");
    names.add("Bob");
    names.add("Charlie");
    return names;
  }
}

In this example, the getNames method returns a list of strings with the values "Alice", "Bob", and "Charlie". The returned list is then assigned to the names variable in the main method, and its values are printed to the console using a for-each loop.

Note that the type of the list being returned must be specified in the method signature. In this case, the getNames method returns a list of strings, so the method is declared as public static List<String> getNames().