How can I initialize a String array with length 0 in Java?

Question

The Java Docs for the method
String[] java.io.File.list(FilenameFilter filter)
includes this in the returns description:

The array will be empty if the directory is empty or if no names were accepted by the filter.

How do I do a similar thing and initialize a String array (or any other array for that matter) to have a length 0?

Answer 1

Ok I actually found the answer but thought I would 'import' the question into SO anyway

String[] files = new String[0];
or
int[] files = new int[0];

Answer 2

String[] str = new String[0];?

Answer 3

String[] str = {};

But

return {};

won't work as the type information is missing.

Answer 4

As others have said,

new String[0]

will indeed create an empty array. However, there's one nice thing about arrays - their size can't change, so you can always use the same empty array reference. So in your code, you can use:

private static final String[] EMPTY_ARRAY = new String[0];

and then just return EMPTY_ARRAY each time you need it - there's no need to create a new object each time.