Use a Java Array like a List

I'm saving string values in an array one at a time so I cannot initialize the array with the values all at once. After I'm done with the array I need to pass it to another class that is expected a String array.

Normally I would use a List but the end result is expecting an Array so I stuck with the Array. I'm having second thoughts though because maybe it would have better performance if I used a List then when I'm finished filling up the List I could use List.toArray and get the Array that way? Here is majority of the Array code I wrote that takes one argument at a time and adds it to the Array,

public String[] addArgument(String[] arguments, String arg) {

    String[] temp = new String[arguments.length + 1];

    for(int i=0; i<arguments.length; i++)
        temp[i] = arguments[i];

    temp[arguments.length] = arg;

    arguments = temp;

    temp = null;

    return arguments;
}

You should use the List#toArray method, you want to use the generic method, so not the one returning Object[], for this to work you need to supply an array of the correct size, such that it can store the data there.

List list = ...;
String[] = list.toArray(new String[list.size()]);

Note that the array need not be the same size, there are two cases to consider:

• If `array.length

• Else, it will put the data in the input array.

StackExchange Code Review Q#57703, answer score: 8