Is List an abstract class?

List is an interface because of how general it is. It does not assume anything about implementation. AbstractSequentialList and AbstractList on the other hand do assume certain ways of element access. Hence they’re implemented as abstract classes .

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What is the purpose of abstract class?

The purpose of an abstract class (often referred to as an ABC) is to provide an appropriate base class from which other classes can inherit . Abstract classes cannot be used to instantiate objects and serves only as an interface. Attempting to instantiate an object of an abstract class causes a compilation error.

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