How to get the last element of a List in Java?
使用list.get(list.size() - 1)可获取Java列表最后一个元素,需先检查列表非空以避免异常;也可用Apache Commons的ListUtils.getLast()或流式处理reduce方法,但推荐前者。

To get the last element of a List in Java, you can use the size() method to determine the number of elements and then access the element at the index size() - 1, since list indices are zero-based.
Using get() and size()
The most common way is to call list.get(list.size() - 1). This retrieves the element at the last index.
List<String> list = Arrays.asList("apple", "banana", "cherry");
if (!list.isEmpty()) {
String lastElement = list.get(list.size() - 1);
System.out.println(lastElement); // Output: cherry
}Note: Always check that the list is not empty before accessing the last element to avoid IndexOutOfBoundsException.
Using ListUtils from Apache Commons (Optional)
If you're using Apache Commons Collections, you can use ListUtils.getLast(), which safely returns null for empty lists.
import org.apache.commons.collections4.ListUtils; String last = ListUtils.getLast(list);
Using Streams (Java 8 )
You can also use streams to get the last element, though it's less efficient for this purpose:
String last = list.stream().reduce((a, b) -> b).orElse(null);
This works by reducing the stream so that each element replaces the previous one, leaving the last one. But it's overkill unless you're already working with streams.
For simple cases, stick with get(size() - 1) and check for emptiness first. That’s the fastest and clearest approach.
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