Incompatible types when converting List to String array

Question

I seem to be getting an error when trying to convert a list to an array, this is my code

List text = loadFile(pathName); String[] convertedData = text.toArray(new String[text.size()]);

The error I'm getting is:

incompatible types: java.lang.Object[] cannot be converted to java.lang.String[].

Not really sure why and if anymore information is needed ill be happy to post, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Use a generic List of String s:

List<String> text = loadFile(pathName);

and make sure that the loadFile method returns a List<String> .

Answer 2

The problem is that you're calling the parameterless overload of toArray() , which returns Object[] . You can't assign an Object[] to an String[] variable. To fix the problem do this:

 List<String> text = loadFile(pathName);