What is the Difference Between List and Set?

The primary difference between a list and a set is that a list allows duplicate elements and maintains their order, while a set ensures element uniqueness without any guaranteed order. Here are some key differences between lists and sets:

• Duplicate Elements: Lists allow duplicate values, while sets do not.
• Order: Lists maintain the order of elements, while sets do not have any guaranteed order (except for ordered variants like LinkedHashSet).
• Index Access: Lists support access by index (e.g., get(index)), while sets do not support index-based access.
• Examples: List examples include ArrayList and LinkedList, while set examples include HashSet and TreeSet.

In summary, lists are ordered collections of data that allow duplicate elements and support positional indexing, while sets are unordered collections that ensure uniqueness of elements and do not support positional indexing.

Comparative Table: List vs Set

Here is a table comparing the differences between lists and sets:

In summary, lists are ordered collections of elements that allow duplicate elements and can be accessed by their position. On the other hand, sets are unordered collections of unique elements that do not allow duplicate elements, and position access to elements is not allowed.