From Arraylist to Array

ArrayList<String> myArrayList = new ArrayList<String>();
...
String[] myArray = myArrayList.toArray(new String[0]);

Whether it's a "good idea" would really be dependent on your use case.

Yes it is safe to convert an ArrayList to an Array. Whether it is a good idea depends on your intended use. Do you need the operations that ArrayList provides? If so, keep it an ArrayList. Else convert away!

ArrayList<Integer> foo = new ArrayList<Integer>();
foo.add(1);
foo.add(1);
foo.add(2);
foo.add(3);
foo.add(5);
Integer[] bar = foo.toArray(new Integer[foo.size()]);
System.out.println("bar.length = " + bar.length);

outputs

bar.length = 5

This is the best way (IMHO).

List<String> myArrayList = new ArrayList<String>();
//.....
String[] myArray = myArrayList.toArray(new String[myArrayList.size()]);

This code works also:

String[] myArray = myArrayList.toArray(new String[0]);

But it less effective: the string array is created twice: first time zero-length array is created, then the real-size array is created, filled and returned. So, if since you know the needed size (from list.size()) you should create array that is big enough to put all elements. In this case it is not re-allocated.