What are collection data structures used for in programming?

Collections are data structures that allow storing and managing groups of elements (objects) in programming. In Java, collections are used for convenient storage, searching, sorting, and processing of data.

Main reasons for using collections:

• They allow working with a dynamic number of elements (unlike fixed-size arrays).
• They provide convenient methods for adding, removing, and searching for elements.
• They can store data in various structures: lists, sets, queues, maps.

Example of using a List collection in Java:

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

List<String> names = new ArrayList<>();
names.add("Anna");
names.add("Boris");
for (String name : names) {
    System.out.println(name);
}