Map implementation with duplicate keys

Question

I want to have a map with duplicate keys.

I know there are many map implementations (Eclipse shows me about 50), so I bet there must be one that allows this. I know it's easy to write your own map that does this, but I would rather use some existing solution.

Maybe something in commons-collections or google-collections?

Answer 1

 1, Map<String, List<String>> map = new HashMap<>();

this verbose solution has multiple drawbacks and is prone to errors. It implies that we need to instantiate a Collection for every value, check for its presence before adding or removing a value, delete it manually when no values are left, etcetera.

2, org.apache.commons.collections4.MultiMap interface
3, com.google.common.collect.Multimap interface 

java-map-duplicate-keys

Answer 2

You are searching for a multimap, and indeed both commons-collections and Guava have several implementations for that. Multimaps allow for multiple keys by maintaining a collection of values per key, i.e. you can put a single object into the map, but you retrieve a collection.

If you can use Java 5, I would prefer Guava's Multimap as it is generics-aware.

Answer 3

I had a slightly different variant of this issue: It was required to associate two different values with same key. Just posting it here in case it helps others, I have introduced a HashMap as the value:

/* @param frameTypeHash: Key -> Integer (frameID), Value -> HashMap (innerMap)
   @param innerMap: Key -> String (extIP), Value -> String
   If the key exists, retrieve the stored HashMap innerMap 
   and put the constructed key, value pair
*/
  if (frameTypeHash.containsKey(frameID)){
            //Key exists, add the key/value to innerHashMap
            HashMap innerMap = (HashMap)frameTypeHash.get(frameID);
            innerMap.put(extIP, connName+":"+frameType+":"+interfaceName);

        } else {
            HashMap<String, String> innerMap = new HashMap<String, String>();
            innerMap.put(extIP, connName+":"+frameType+":"+interfaceName);
            // This means the key doesn't exists, adding it for the first time
            frameTypeHash.put(frameID, innerMap );
        }
}

In the above code the key frameID is read from a input file's first string in each line, the value for frameTypeHash is constructed by splitting the remaining line and was stored as String object originally, over a period of time the file started having multiple lines (with different values) associated with same frameID key, so frameTypeHash was overwritten with last line as the value. I replaced the String object with another HashMap object as the value field, this helped in maintaining single key to different value mapping.

Answer 4

Could you also explain the context for which you are trying to implement a map with duplicate keys? I am sure there could be a better solution. Maps are intended to keep unique keys for good reason. Though if you really wanted to do it; you can always extend the class write a simple custom map class which has a collision mitigation function and would enable you to keep multiple entries with same keys.

Note: You must implement collision mitigation function such that, colliding keys are converted to unique set "always". Something simple like, appending key with object hashcode or something?

Answer 5

Learn from my mistakes...please don't implement this on your own. Guava multimap is the way to go.

A common enhancement required in multimaps is to disallow duplicate keys-value pairs.

Implementing/changing this in a your implementation can be annoying.

In Guava its as simple as:

HashMultimap<String, Integer> no_dupe_key_plus_val = HashMultimap.create();

ArrayListMultimap<String, Integer> allow_dupe_key_plus_val = ArrayListMultimap.create();

Answer 6

Multimap<Integer, String> multimap = ArrayListMultimap.create();

multimap.put(1, "A");
multimap.put(1, "B");
multimap.put(1, "C");
multimap.put(1, "A");

multimap.put(2, "A");
multimap.put(2, "B");
multimap.put(2, "C");

multimap.put(3, "A");

System.out.println(multimap.get(1));
System.out.println(multimap.get(2));       
System.out.println(multimap.get(3));

Output is:

[A,B,C,A]
[A,B,C]
[A]

Note: we need to import library files.

http://www.java2s.com/Code/Jar/g/Downloadgooglecollectionsjar.htm

import com.google.common.collect.ArrayListMultimap;
import com.google.common.collect.Multimap;

or https://commons.apache.org/proper/commons-collections/download_collections.cgi

import org.apache.commons.collections.MultiMap;
import org.apache.commons.collections.map.MultiValueMap;