Java Hashmap: How to get key from value?

Question

If I have the value "foo", and a HashMap<String> ftw for which ftw.containsValue("foo") returns true, how can I get the corresponding key? Do I have to loop through the hashmap? What is the best way to do that?

Answer 1

It sounds like the best way is for you to iterate over entries using map.entrySet() since map.containsValue() probably does this anyway.

Answer 2

My 2 cents. You can get the keys in an array and then loop through the array. This will affect performance of this code block if the map is pretty big , where in you are getting the keys in an array first which might consume some time and then you are looping. Otherwise for smaller maps it should be ok.

String[] keys =  yourMap.keySet().toArray(new String[0]);

for(int i = 0 ; i < keys.length ; i++){
    //This is your key    
    String key = keys[i];

    //This is your value
    yourMap.get(key)            
}

Answer 3

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;

public class ValueKeysMap<K, V> extends HashMap <K,V>{
    HashMap<V, Set<K>> ValueKeysMap = new HashMap<V, Set<K>>();

    @Override
    public boolean containsValue(Object value) {
        return ValueKeysMap.containsKey(value);
    }

    @Override
    public V put(K key, V value) {
        if (containsValue(value)) {
            Set<K> keys = ValueKeysMap.get(value);
            keys.add(key);
        } else {
            Set<K> keys = new HashSet<K>();
            keys.add(key);
            ValueKeysMap.put(value, keys);
        }
        return super.put(key, value);
    }

    @Override
    public V remove(Object key) {
        V value = super.remove(key);
        Set<K> keys = ValueKeysMap.get(value);
        keys.remove(key);
        if(keys.size() == 0) {
           ValueKeysMap.remove(value);
        }
        return value;
    }

    public Set<K> getKeys4ThisValue(V value){
        Set<K> keys = ValueKeysMap.get(value);
        return keys;
    }

    public boolean valueContainsThisKey(K key, V value){
        if (containsValue(value)) {
            Set<K> keys = ValueKeysMap.get(value);
            return keys.contains(key);
        }
        return false;
    }

    /*
     * Take care of argument constructor and other api's like putAll
     */
}

Answer 4

/**
 * This method gets the Key for the given Value
 * @param paramName
 * @return
 */
private String getKeyForValueFromMap(String paramName) {
    String keyForValue = null;
    if(paramName!=null)) {
        Set<Entry<String,String>> entrySet = myMap().entrySet();
        if(entrySet!=null && entrySet.size>0) {
            for(Entry<String,String> entry : entrySet) {
                if(entry!=null && paramName.equalsIgnoreCase(entry.getValue())) {
                    keyForValue = entry.getKey();
                }
            }
        }
    }
    return keyForValue;
}

Answer 5

In java8

map.entrySet().stream().filter(entry -> entry.getValue().equals(value))
    .forEach(entry -> System.out.println(entry.getKey()));

Answer 6

If your data structure has many-to-one mapping between keys and values you should iterate over entries and pick all suitable keys:

public static <T, E> Set<T> getKeysByValue(Map<T, E> map, E value) {
    Set<T> keys = new HashSet<T>();
    for (Entry<T, E> entry : map.entrySet()) {
        if (Objects.equals(value, entry.getValue())) {
            keys.add(entry.getKey());
        }
    }
    return keys;
}

In case of one-to-one relationship, you can return the first matched key:

public static <T, E> T getKeyByValue(Map<T, E> map, E value) {
    for (Entry<T, E> entry : map.entrySet()) {
        if (Objects.equals(value, entry.getValue())) {
            return entry.getKey();
        }
    }
    return null;
}

In Java 8:

public static <T, E> Set<T> getKeysByValue(Map<T, E> map, E value) {
    return map.entrySet()
              .stream()
              .filter(entry -> Objects.equals(entry.getValue(), value))
              .map(Map.Entry::getKey)
              .collect(Collectors.toSet());
}

Also, for Guava users, BiMap may be useful. For example:

BiMap<Token, Character> tokenToChar = 
    ImmutableBiMap.of(Token.LEFT_BRACKET, '[', Token.LEFT_PARENTHESIS, '(');
Token token = tokenToChar.inverse().get('(');
Character c = tokenToChar.get(token);