Map with Key as String and Value as List in Groovy

Question

Can anyone point me to an example of how to use a Map in Groovy which has a String as its key and a List as value?

Answer 1

Joseph forgot to add the value in his example with withDefault. Here is the code I ended up using:

Map map = [:].withDefault { key -> return [] }
listOfObjects.each { map.get(it.myKey).add(it.myValue) }

Answer 2

Groovy accepts nearly all Java syntax, so there is a spectrum of choices, as illustrated below:

// Java syntax 

Map<String,List> map1  = new HashMap<>();
List list1 = new ArrayList();
list1.add("hello");
map1.put("abc", list1); 
assert map1.get("abc") == list1;

// slightly less Java-esque

def map2  = new HashMap<String,List>()
def list2 = new ArrayList()
list2.add("hello")
map2.put("abc", list2)
assert map2.get("abc") == list2

// typical Groovy

def map3  = [:]
def list3 = []
list3 << "hello"
map3.'abc'= list3
assert map3.'abc' == list3

Answer 3

you don't need to declare Map groovy internally recognizes it

def personDetails = [firstName:'John', lastName:'Doe', fullName:'John Doe']

// print the values..
    println "First Name: ${personDetails.firstName}"
    println "Last Name: ${personDetails.lastName}"

http://grails.asia/groovy-map-tutorial

Answer 4

def map = [:]
map["stringKey"] = [1, 2, 3, 4]
map["anotherKey"] = [55, 66, 77]

assert map["anotherKey"] == [55, 66, 77] 

Answer 5

One additional small piece that is helpful when dealing with maps/list as the value in a map is the withDefault(Closure) method on maps in groovy. Instead of doing the following code:

Map m = [:]
for(object in listOfObjects)
{
  if(m.containsKey(object.myKey))
  {
    m.get(object.myKey).add(object.myValue)
  }
  else
  {
    m.put(object.myKey, [object.myValue]
  }
}

You can do the following:

Map m = [:].withDefault{key -> return []}
for(object in listOfObjects)
{
  List valueList = m.get(object.myKey)
  m.put(object.myKey, valueList)
}

With default can be used for other things as well, but I find this the most common use case for me.

API: http://www.groovy-lang.org/gdk.html

Map -> withDefault(Closure)