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

We don't need to depend on the Google Collections external library. You can simply implement the following Map:

Map<String, ArrayList<String>> hashMap = new HashMap<String, ArrayList>();

public static void main(String... arg) {
   // Add data with duplicate keys
   addValues("A", "a1");
   addValues("A", "a2");
   addValues("B", "b");
   // View data.
   Iterator it = hashMap.keySet().iterator();
   ArrayList tempList = null;

   while (it.hasNext()) {
      String key = it.next().toString();             
      tempList = hashMap.get(key);
      if (tempList != null) {
         for (String value: tempList) {
            System.out.println("Key : "+key+ " , Value : "+value);
         }
      }
   }
}

private void addValues(String key, String value) {
   ArrayList tempList = null;
   if (hashMap.containsKey(key)) {
      tempList = hashMap.get(key);
      if(tempList == null)
         tempList = new ArrayList();
      tempList.add(value);  
   } else {
      tempList = new ArrayList();
      tempList.add(value);               
   }
   hashMap.put(key,tempList);
}

Please make sure to fine tune the code.

Answer 2

just to be complete, Apache Commons Collections also has a MultiMap. The downside of course is that Apache Commons does not use Generics.

Answer 3

This problem can be solved with a list of map entry List<Map.Entry<K,V>>. We don't need to use neither external libraries nor new implementation of Map. A map entry can be created like this: Map.Entry<String, Integer> entry = new AbstractMap.SimpleEntry<String, Integer>("key", 1);

Answer 4

commons.apache.org

MultiValueMap class

Answer 5

If there are duplicate keys then a key may correspond to more than one value. The obvious solution is to map the key to a list of these values.

For example in Python:

map = dict()
map["driver"] = list()
map["driver"].append("john")
map["driver"].append("mike")
print map["driver"]          # It shows john and mike
print map["driver"][0]       # It shows john
print map["driver"][1]       # It shows mike

Answer 6

With a bit hack you can use HashSet with duplicate keys. WARNING: this is heavily HashSet implementation dependant.

class MultiKeyPair {
    Object key;
    Object value;

    public MultiKeyPair(Object key, Object value) {
        this.key = key;
        this.value = value;
    }

    @Override
    public int hashCode() {
        return key.hashCode();
    }
}

class MultiKeyList extends MultiKeyPair {
    ArrayList<MultiKeyPair> list = new ArrayList<MultiKeyPair>();

    public MultiKeyList(Object key) {
        super(key, null);
    }

    @Override
    public boolean equals(Object obj) {
        list.add((MultiKeyPair) obj);
        return false;
    }
}

public static void main(String[] args) {
    HashSet<MultiKeyPair> set = new HashSet<MultiKeyPair>();
    set.add(new MultiKeyPair("A","a1"));
    set.add(new MultiKeyPair("A","a2"));
    set.add(new MultiKeyPair("B","b1"));
    set.add(new MultiKeyPair("A","a3"));

    MultiKeyList o = new MultiKeyList("A");
    set.contains(o);

    for (MultiKeyPair pair : o.list) {
        System.out.println(pair.value);
    }
}