What is the purpose of the toList method and how does it collect elements into a list?

The toList() method in Java is used to collect elements from a stream into an immutable list. It is a terminal operator that transforms a data stream into a List collection.

Example usage:

List<String> list = Stream.of("a", "b", "c")
                          .filter(s -> !s.isEmpty())
                          .toList();

In Java 16+, the toList() method returns an immutable list, unlike collect(Collectors.toList()), which returns a mutable list. toList() collects elements into a list while preserving the order of elements from the stream.