Question

I’m implementing an algorithm that will add strings at the end a collection and remove strings at the beginning. In rare cases I will perform random access remove to push it at the end. I’m mostly a C++ dev, and I’m not sure what will be good to use in my critical loop in java. I don’t think a java list will be well suited for the task. Sure it will work, but I’m already struggling with performance issues.

linked list? vector? suggestions?

Answer 1

I’d recommend using ArrayDeque, which implements Queue and Deque interfaces but doesn’t implement List (which you probably won’t need):

Resizable-array implementation of the Deque interface. Array deques
have no capacity restrictions; they grow as necessary to support
usage. They are not thread-safe; in the absence of external
synchronization, they do not support concurrent access by multiple
threads. Null elements are prohibited. This class is likely to be
faster than Stack when used as a stack, and faster than LinkedList
when used as a queue.

You also mentioned remove:

This interface provides two methods to remove interior elements,
removeFirstOccurrence and removeLastOccurrence.

ArrayDeque provides all methods you’ll need – addFirst(E e), addLast(E e), removeFirst().

See also this question to know more about ArrayDeque.

P.S. And here is some collections benchmark from above link featuring ArrayDeque, LinkedList and ArrayList mentioned by others 😉