In Java, why is the class "Arrays" plural? [closed]

Question

In Java, you import HashMap; and import ArrayList;, etc. So why is import Arrays; plural?

Answer 1

The Utility classes which deals with Arrays, Files, Paths, Objects or Collections are plural. Exactly because they are not an Array or a Collection but rather a number of utility functions to work on them. You can even see that in the Javadoc intro:

This class contains various methods for manipulating arrays

Some of those classes are fairly new additions in 1.7. So this explains their common naming convention. I am not sure if there is a written conventions for it, but it is surely a practical one.

Answer 2

Because it's a collection of utilities to work with arrays. The other examples you've mentioned are actually instances of a particular type of collection.

For example, the same naming convention has been followed in Guava for Lists, Sets, Maps etc.

Answer 3

It is a collection of utilities that deals with arrays, and doesn't represent the array itself. Also there is another class with name Array. Check this https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/java/lang/reflect/Array.html