How to get the first element of the List in Java?

The List interface extends Collection interface. It is a collection that stores a sequence of elements. ArrayList is the most popular implementation of the List interface. User of a list has quite precise control over where an element to be inserted in the List. These elements are accessible by their index and are searchable.

List interface provides a get() method to get the element at particular index. You can specify index as 0 to get the first element of the List. In this article, we're exploring get() method usage via multiple examples.

Syntax

E get(int index)

Returns the element at the specified position.

Parameters

• index - index of the element to return.

Returns

The element at the specified position.

Throws

• IndexOutOfBoundsException - If the index is out of range (index < 0 || index >= size())

Example 1

Following is the example showing how to get the first element from a List.

package com.tutorialspoint;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Arrays;
import java.util.List;

public class CollectionsDemo {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<>(Arrays.asList(4,5,6));
      System.out.println("List: " + list);

      // First element of the List
      System.out.println("First element of the List: " + list.get(0));

   }
}

Output

This will produce the following result −

List: [4, 5, 6]
First element of the List: 4

Example 2

Following is the example where getting the first element from a List can throw an exception.

package com.tutorialspoint;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class CollectionsDemo {
   public static void main(String[] args) {
      List<Integer> list = new ArrayList<>();
      System.out.println("List: " + list);
     
      try {
         // First element of the List
         System.out.println("First element of the List: " + list.get(0));
      } catch(Exception e) {
         e.printStackTrace();
      }
   }
}

Output

This will produce the following result −

List: []
java.lang.IndexOutOfBoundsException: Index: 0, Size: 0
   at java.util.ArrayList.rangeCheck(ArrayList.java:659)
   at java.util.ArrayList.get(ArrayList.java:435)
   at com.tutorialspoint.CollectionsDemo.main(CollectionsDemo.java:11)