Functional Java: how do I construct an empty list?

Question

I wish to construct the empty list of type List<String>. The best I can come up with that satisfies the type-checker is:

(List<String>) (Object) List.nil()

which is terribly ugly. Is there something better?

Answer 1

Here is another option:

List<String> l = List.<String>nil();

Answer 2

This should do it:

List<String> myList = list();