How to make an array in Java read only? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicates:
Java unmodifiable array
Immutable array in Java

How do I make an array read only so that the elements inside it can only be read but cannot be modified,added or deleted. need to do this in JAVA. Please help. I think merely the use of final keyword wont help.Need to do something more than that at the code level. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Short answer is you can't -- final will only guarantee you that the reference to the array itself won't be changed. You can do this with a List though, as the Collections class provides a method for creating a List that cannot be modified (Collections.unmodifiableList) -- that is only if you can change your application to use List rather than array.