Use unmodifiable views or defensive copies when exposing collections.
To prevent collection leaks, avoid exposing internal collections directly. Instead, provide methods that return unmodifiable views or defensive copies. This ensures that external users cannot alter the internal state of the collection, maintaining the integrity and consistency of the object's data. In an e-commerce system, you could use Collections.unmodifiableList to safely expose a list of product categories.
Additional Notes
What design choices help prevent collection leaks?