I have an ArrayList of HashMap key-value pairs which looks like
ArrayList<HashMap<String, String>> myList =
new ArrayList<HashMap<String, String>>();
I understand that I can iterate through these items and find a match, but this seems to be an expensive task. Is there any other way to get an element without iterating?
My ArrayList has values like
[{Father Name=a, Mother Name=b, Child Name=c, Reg No=1, Tag ID=1},
{Father Name=p, Mother Name=q, Child Name=r, Reg No=2, Tag ID=2},
{Father Name=x, Mother Name=y, Child Name=z, Reg No=3, Tag ID=3}]
Based on RegNo, I wish to get Father Name, Mother Name and Child Name without iterating individual items.
Without iterating you will need to store your HashMap in another HashMap with key Reg No. Though I'd recommend using a Family object or something similar: HashMap<Integer, Family> registration (that's the beauty of OO-languages :) )
class Family {
String father;
String mother;
String child;
// constructor getters setters
}
Map<Integer, Family> registration = new HashMap(); // note this is a JDK7 future
//Map<Integer, Family> registration = new HashMap<Integer, Family>(); // the 'old' way
registration.put(regNo, new Family("Jack", "Mary", "Bastard"));
Family family = registration.get(regNo);
String father = family.getFather();
since you are storing hashes in list, that means order remain constant. So that mean you can create another array to store the Reg No in same order, and then search reg no in that array and based on searched value index you can get the other values.
Iterating is O(n), but you want the access to your structure to be faster... This means storing objects in a ordered manner ( -> O(log(n)) usually) or using another hash ( -> O(1)).
Or this, or you "hide" the iteration, but this would solve the problem only esthetically (something like getElementsByTagName in xml).
In any case you'll probably have to alter your structures, especially if you want to be able to have faster access for every field (father/mother/child/tag) and not just 'reg no'.
Maybe another solution could be storing plain data in a hash with a keypair like (primary key, data), duplicating the PK for every field in your HashMap, but this not only implies searching a valid primary key, there could be the problem of the size of the hash.
Related
I have Merchant_Id, Merchant_details, Shop_Id and are have category.
If I create a HashTable with < Merchant_Id , Merchant_details > The retrieval of Merchant_details will be easy for a given Merchant_Id.
The Shop_Id can be encapsulated inside the Merchant_details, so I can retrieve the list of shop for a Merchant_Id.
If I need to list of merchants for a specific category, for example list of merchants in 'restaurant' or 'sports'. And I don't want to iterate through the entire list of items to find the category.
How can I incorporate all the three in single structure without database.
A suggestion:
Create a structure with Merchant_Id, Merchant_Details and Shop_Id.
Put them into a std::vector.
Create an empty std::map<Merchant_ID, unsigned int>.
Iterate through the vector, adding elements to the map:
merchant_id_map[vector[i].Merchant_ID] = i;
This is called an index table.
Create one for the other fields as well.
When you need to search by Merchant_Id, use the merchant_id_map to get the index into the vector:
unsigned int vector_index = merchant_id_map[merchant_id];
record = database_vector[vector_index];
C++ flavor:
using category_assignment = std::set<merchant_id_type>;
std::map<std::string, category_assignment> categories;
(wherever you place it) will give you cheap access from the category name to the respective merchants.
Problem starts when you need it backwards ("which categories does Merchant N belong to?")
To get that you should encapsulate the map in a singleton-like class X, add a map for the reverse mapping and manage both maps through the interface of X.
I am currently writing code which contains an arraylist. This arraylist includes data which is name, lastname, job and id. I need to seperate the data into different arraylists. Currently i am using the method which is shown below.
for (int i = 0; i < details.size(); i = i + 4) {
names.add(details.get(i));
lastname.add(details.get(i + 1));
job.add(details.get(i + 2));
id.add(details.get(i+3));
}
I want to know if there is a better way of doing this. The initial arraylist can be very long, and i dont know if there are any issues with this method.
You asked: "I want to know if there is a better way of doing this". There is a better way.
You should consider creating a class called Record that contains the data (name, last name, job, and ID), and create an ArrayList. Then, instead of using index locations (and potentially grab the wrong data item), you could use the Record getter methods to get the data item you need (and perhaps store it in a different list).
Step 1: Create a Record class:
public class Record
{
private String firstName;
private String lastName;
private String job;
private String id;
// TODO add constructor(s), getters and setters
}
Step 2: Create a list of Records (this is an better alternative that create a list having the information in different index locations. That way, each set of name, last name, job, and ID will be self-contained which is way better than disjointed in different index locations in a list.
ArrayList<Record> records = new ArrayList<Record>();
Step 3: Instead of using index locations (and potentially grab the wrong data item), you could use the Record getter methods to get the data item you need (and perhaps store it in a different list).
ArrayList<String> names = new ArrayList<String>();
ArrayList<String> jobs = new ArrayList<String>();
...
names.add(records.getLastName() + ", " + records.getFirstName());
jobs.add(records.getJob());
Alternatively, and maybe a better solution, you could use a Map to store this information. For example, a job ID could be the key in a Map that returns a job description and who has been assigned to perform it. Job IDs have to be unique. Adding IDs to a list can be duplicated, because the List interface doesn't restrict entering duplicate data. If you use a Map, they keys are guaranteed to be unique. The value being returned from the Map could be a Record object (or some other kind) that contains the name of the person and the job the person is responsible for. Since values can be duplicates, you can have a person performing multiple jobs, which is probably what you want to do. To use a Map:
Map<String, Record> jobs = new HashMap<String, Record>(); //This record class doesn't have ID in it.
jobs.put("ABC123", new Record("John", "Doe", "Fix Drywall");
jobs.put("321CBA", new Record("Bill", "Smith", "Install Light Fixtures");
A few things to consider if using a Map. If you try to make a new entry with an existing key, the old one will be overwritten.
jobs.put("ABC123", new Record("John", "Doe", "Fix Drywall");
jobs.put("ABC123", new Record("Bill", "Smith", "Install Light Fixtures"); //Overwrote the previous entry because key is the same
If you want to change the key for an existing value, you must obtain the value, store temporarily, remove the old record, and make a new entry with the old temp value:
jobs.put("ABC123", new Record("John", "Doe", "Fix Drywall");
Record rec = jobs.remove("ABC123"); // gets the record and removes old entry
jobs.put("321CBA", rec); // new job ID for old record
The main issue is that your details can have missing data. For example it has the size=5. Then your method will crush with IndexOutOfBounds. Your details list should contain a Person object which has all the details you want and then just use them to fill other lists.
The main performance kill will be the add operation since it will have to grow the data structure over time. Since you know details.size() you should initialize the other arraylists with details.size()/4.
You should also check that details.size() % 4 == 0 before the for loop. If not it means your data is somehow wrong and you will run for sure into an IndexOutOfBounds.
Just for correctness you should write i < details.size()+3 as your condition, since you will access element i+3 in the for body. You should always check for i < details.size()+x do it like this if you ever access i+x in the body. (for the largest x there will be in the body)
I am reading a huge xml file with Java SAX parser:
http://api.steampowered.com/IEconItems_440/GetSchema/v0001/?format=xml
(2.82 MB)
This file contains several thousand 'items', each with properties like 'name', 'level', etc. One of the properties is a unique integer identifier called 'defindex'. I am creating POJOs for each of these items with some of the properties mentioned above as fields (defindex is one of them).
I will need to read these item objects a lot by searching for the defindex
I won't change the data fields of objects though
My question is: How should I store these item objects?
My first thought was storing them in an array and use the defindex as actual array-index, but the array would be huge and not all defindexes are used, e.g. it jumps from 2k to 30k at one point.
Use a Map.
Map objects store relationships between unique "keys" and values.
Implementations of Map are HashMap and TreeMap, among others. They are generic, with a type parameter for the key and value.
You could use the following. This is DEFINITELY pseudocode; adapt it to however you are going to be manipulating these objects. I did not take the SAX API into account; this just demonstrates how to use a Map.
Map<Integer, Item> items = new HashMap<Integer, Item>();
for (Item itemToRead : file) { // or however you iterate
items.put(item.getDefindex(), item);
}
// data retrieval
Item itemToRetrieve = items.get(defindexToGet);
I am using Android 2.1 SDK, the application reads from the Sqlite database, a table that has two columns, an id, and a string.
I read in this into a HashMap<Long, String>, the value part of it gets displayed in a List, now, I wish to obtain the key value, so I cooked up this simple routine:
private Map.Entry<Long, String> getEntry(String sValue){
for (Iterator<Map.Entry<Long, String>> itMap = this.dbMap.entrySet().iterator(); itMap.hasNext();) {
Map.Entry<Long, String> curr = itMap.next();
if (curr.getValue().equalsIgnoreCase(sValue)) return curr;
}
return null;
}
My problem is being conscious of cpu cycles being chewed up in respect to Android, battery/cpu time, in looking for the value in the HashMap, that could be seen as a potential cycles of cpu lost.
Is there an easier and more efficient way of doing this instead of iterating?
The reasoning is that I can home in on the id, and directly delete the record from the table or even update it.
Um... it looks like the String should be the key, and the id the value. Which assumes that the Strings are unique, but so does your code.
Alternatively, can't your list keep the ID that corresponds to an entry around invisibly? This is how you'd usually do it (e.g. in Swing or in a HTML select).
Realistically, the only way to avoid having to iterate through is to keep two HashMaps (i.e. pay the memory cost) where one HashMap is the reverse of the first. You can create the reverse-lookup HashMap when you create your forward-lookup HashMap without having to loop through your data twice. That should give you low constant time access in both directions.
If you use an Adapter you can access the ID using the getItemID() method.
Can I have an hashMap with say ID as my key and info, name, quantity as my values?
ok, say I have a class (Products) already that sets my variables, getters and setters. In my Invoice class, which is where the hashMap would be. Would I put like:
private HashMap<String, Products> keys = new HashMap<String, Products>
I'm not quite sure how to access the HashMap though. Say I implement a class that allows me to add and remove invoices from the HashMap, I do not know what the values would be:
keys.put(??value of id??,??not sure what goes here??);
Sure. Make another class that contains your info, name and quantity and put that as the value of your HashMap.
No, but the best way is to wrap the information you want to keep in the map in a class:
public class Info {
private String info;
private String name;
private int quantity;
...
public Info(String info, String name, int quantity) {
...
}
}
Then do this to put something in the map:
Info info = new Info("info", "name", 2);
Map map = new HashMap<Integer, Info>();
map.put(22, info);
And do this to get something out:
Info info = map.get(22)
How about HashMap<Integer, ArrayList<String>> ?
UPDATE: Please try to avoid this, this is a better approach.
Not exactly.
A Map defines a strictly 1 to 1 relationship between keys and values. One key in the map has one value.
If you want to associate multiple values with one key you need to do one of the following:
Define a Values class to represent the values as a single object; e.g. as per #Starkey's and #Javed's answers. Then the map becomes a Map<String, Values> (assuming that the key type is String).
Define the map as a Map<String,List<Object>> or Map<String,Object[]> and represent the values as an untyped list / array
Define the map as a Map<String,Properties> or Map<String,Map<String,Object>> and represent the values as the Java equivalent of an associative array.
Of these, the first option is both the safest (smallest chance of runtime errors), the most efficient and the best style.
(Aside: an Apache commons MultiMap might be considered as another possibility, but the conceptual model and APIs don't really match this use-case.)
Sure. Depending on how flexible your datastructe is you can use a Hashmap a la:
HashMap<IdType, List<String>>, with IdType String or Integer, depending on the Keys you like to use.
HashMap<IdType, String[]>
HashMap<IdType, YourObjectType>, with YourObjectType beeing a Object you defined yourself, holding the values you like
YourObjectType can of course be anything you can define as an Object. Also another HashMap if you like.
One of the concerns while using a Map would be use of hardcoded keys. If the key is a string, and the key changes. Can consider using a constant instead of a hardcoded string.
Having a dedicated class has the benefit of compiler to check for name changes. However, as mentioned in the earlier comments.. It can become a concern...
In my opinion both are feasible. We need to weigh which option is better depending on the situation
Create an object that encapsulates the four together. Something like:
public class Foo {
private String s1;
private String s2;
private int v3;
private MyObject obj1
// constructors, getters, helper functions.
}
I think MultiMap from google library could serve the purpose
https://google.github.io/guava/releases/19.0/api/docs/com/google/common/collect/Multimap.html
Multimap<String, String> map = ArrayListMultimap.create();
String key = "uniqueKey";
map.put(key, "value1");
map.put(key, "value2");
map.put(key, "value3");
System.out.println(map);//{uniqueKey=[value1, value2, value3]}
Of course, you could for example declare it like this: HashMap<Integer, HashMap<String,Object>> You use the outer hashmap to link your id with your inner HashMap, and in the inner one, you create keys "info", "name", "quantity" and associate values with them.
Of course, you could also use an ArrayList as the outer collection (it could be a better match for your ID: ArrayList<HashMap<String,Object>> that way you have indexed (id based) access to each of your "info", "name", "quantity" hashmap "records"
You could have ID as key and a List or Set (Collection in general) of objects as value.