Java: Why does calling `remove()` on a List throw UnsupportedOperation exception?

Question

For some reason, I'm getting an UnsupportedOpeationException with the following code. Examining it in the debugger, it looks like the object I'm calling remove() on is a list.

// to optimize, remove totalSize. After taking an item from lowest, if lowest is empty, remove it from `lists`
// lists are sorted to begin with
public static <T extends Comparable<? super T>> List<T> merge(Set<List<T>> lists) {
    List<T> result = new ArrayList<T>();
    HashMap<List<T>, Integer> location = new HashMap<List<T>, Integer>();

    int totalSize = 0; // every element in the set
    for (List<T> l : lists) {
        location.put(l, 0);
        totalSize += l.size();
    }

    boolean first;
    List<T> lowest = lists.iterator().next(); // the list with the lowest item to add
    int index;

    while (result.size() < totalSize) { // while we still have something to add
        first = true;

        for (List<T> l : lists) {
            if (! l.isEmpty()) {
                if (first) {
                    lowest = l;
                }
                else if (l.get(location.get(l)).compareTo(lowest.get(location.get(lowest))) <= 0) {
                    lowest = l;
                }
            }
        }
        index = location.get(lowest);
        result.add(lowest.get(index));
        lowest.remove(index); //problem here
    }
    return result;
}

The exception:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException
    at java.util.AbstractList.remove(Unknown Source)
    at interview.questions.MergeLists.merge(MergeLists.java:72)
    at interview.questions.MergeLists.main(MergeLists.java:32)

Why is this happening?

Answer 1

It's quite possible the underlying implementation of List you received is fixed-length, such as one created by Arrays#asList.