[java] How can I slice an ArrayList out of an ArrayList in Java?

How do I get an array slice of an ArrayList in Java? Specifically I want to do something like this:

ArrayList<Integer> inputA = input.subList(0, input.size()/2);
// where 'input' is a prepouplated ArrayList<Integer>

So I expected this to work, but Java returns a List - so it's incompatible. And when I try to cast it, Java won't let me. I need an ArrayList - what can I do?

I have found a way if you know startIndex and endIndex of the elements one need to remove from ArrayList

Let al be the original ArrayList and startIndex,endIndex be start and end index to be removed from the array respectively:

al.subList(startIndex, endIndex + 1).clear();

If there is no existing method then I guess you can iterate from 0 to input.size()/2, taking each consecutive element and appending it to a new ArrayList.

EDIT: Actually, I think you can take that List and use it to instantiate a new ArrayList using one of the ArrayList constructors.

This is how I solved it. I forgot that sublist was a direct reference to the elements in the original list, so it makes sense why it wouldn't work.

ArrayList<Integer> inputA = new ArrayList<Integer>(input.subList(0, input.size()/2));

Although this post is very old. In case if somebody is looking for this..

Guava facilitates partitioning the List into sublists of a specified size

List<Integer> intList = Lists.newArrayList(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8);
    List<List<Integer>> subSets = Lists.partition(intList, 3);