Java Ordered Map

collectionsjava

In Java, Is there an object that acts like a Map for storing and accessing key/value pairs, but can return an ordered list of keys and an ordered list of values, such that the key and value lists are in the same order?

So as explanation-by-code, I'm looking for something that behaves like my fictitious OrderedMap:

OrderedMap<Integer, String> om = new OrderedMap<>();
om.put(0, "Zero");
om.put(7, "Seven");

String o = om.get(7); // o is "Seven"
List<Integer> keys = om.getKeys();
List<String> values = om.getValues();

for(int i = 0; i < keys.size(); i++)
{
    Integer key = keys.get(i);
    String value = values.get(i);
    Assert(om.get(key) == value);
}

Best Answer

The SortedMap interface (with the implementation TreeMap) should be your friend.

The interface has the methods:

keySet() which returns a set of the keys in ascending order
values() which returns a collection of all values in the ascending order of the corresponding keys

So this interface fulfills exactly your requirements. However, the keys must have a meaningful order. Otherwise you can used the LinkedHashMap where the order is determined by the insertion order.

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There are several differences between HashMap and Hashtable in Java:

Hashtable is synchronized, whereas HashMap is not. This makes HashMap better for non-threaded applications, as unsynchronized Objects typically perform better than synchronized ones.
Hashtable does not allow null keys or values. HashMap allows one null key and any number of null values.
One of HashMap's subclasses is LinkedHashMap, so in the event that you'd want predictable iteration order (which is insertion order by default), you could easily swap out the HashMap for a LinkedHashMap. This wouldn't be as easy if you were using Hashtable.

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Java is always pass-by-value. Unfortunately, when we deal with objects we are really dealing with object-handles called references which are passed-by-value as well. This terminology and semantics easily confuse many beginners.

It goes like this:

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Dog aDog = new Dog("Max");
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In the example above aDog.getName() will still return "Max". The value aDog within main is not changed in the function foo with the Dog "Fifi" as the object reference is passed by value. If it were passed by reference, then the aDog.getName() in main would return "Fifi" after the call to foo.

Likewise:

public static void main(String[] args) {
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}

In the above example, Fifi is the dog's name after call to foo(aDog) because the object's name was set inside of foo(...). Any operations that foo performs on d are such that, for all practical purposes, they are performed on aDog, but it is not possible to change the value of the variable aDog itself.

For more information on pass by reference and pass by value, consult the following SO answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/430958/6005228. This explains more thoroughly the semantics and history behind the two and also explains why Java and many other modern languages appear to do both in certain cases.

Best Answer

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