Unnecessary zero length array usage

Reports allocations of arrays with known lengths of zero when there is a constant for that in the class of the array's element type. As zero-length arrays are immutable, you can save memory reusing the same array instance.

Example:

class Item {
  // Public zero-length array constant that can be reused 
  public static final Item[] EMPTY_ARRAY = new Item[0];
}
class EmptyNode {
  Item[] getChildren() {
    // Unnecessary zero-length array creation
    return new Item[0];
  }
}

After the quick-fix is applied:

class EmptyNode {
  Item[] getChildren() {
    return Item.EMPTY_ARRAY;
  }
}

Inspection Details
Available in:	IntelliJ IDEA 2023.3, Qodana for JVM 2023.3
Plugin:	Java, 233.SNAPSHOT

Last modified: 13 July 2023