Java: Using a hashmap, retrieving all values and calling methods - java

I have a need to store a list of dynamically created objects in a way where they can all be retrieved and their methods called on demand.
As far as I can see for the list and creation, a HashMap fits my needs but i'm a bit puzzled on recalling the objects and calling their methods using the HashMap.
Just as a reference, let me give you a little code:
Here is the HashMap:
Map<String, Object> unitMap = new HashMap<String, Object>();
// here is how I put an object in the Map notice i'm passing coordinates to the constructor:
unitMap.put("1", new Worker(240, 240));
unitMap.put("2", new Worker(240, 240));
Now I need to create a method that retrieves every object in the hashmap and call a method from each object. is this possible or can the created objects only be referenced directly. If so, is there another way to call a method of all existing instances of a class dynamically (in other words, on user input)?

Sure. You can do this:
for (Object thing : unitMap.values()) {
// use "thing" here
}
If you need the keys too, you can either get just the keys:
for (String key : unitMap.keySet()) {
// use "key" here
}
or both the keys and values together:
for (Map.Entry<String, Object> entry : unitMap.entrySet()) {
// use "entry.getKey()" and "entry.getValue()"
}
In all the above cases, each entry in the map is traversed one by one. So at the end of the loop, you'll have processed all the entries in the map.

If all of the values in the Map are Worker objects, you should declare your map to be of type Map<String, Worker>. This way, when you pull a value out of the map, it will be typed as a Worker. This way you can call any method declared on Worker as opposed to having to check the type at runtime using instanceof.
If the map holds different values, and you need to keep the value type as Object, it may be advantageous to use an interface to define the method that you want to call for each different object type.
If you do not know what method you want to run on the values until runtime, and the map can hold different values, you will just have to do what you are currently doing, and use Map<String, Object>.
Finally, to get the values of the map, you do just as Chris Jester-Young mentioned before me. The biggest advantage, as I said previously, is that your objects will be typed, and you will have no need for casting/instanceof checking.

I use this to put all values from hashMap on a List, hope it helps.
private List<String> getValuesFromHashMap(HashMap<String, String> hashMap) {
List<String> values = new ArrayList<String>();
for (String item : hashMap.values()) {
values.add(item);
}
return values;
}

Related

What is a efficient way to condense a List of objects to based on an object value?

I have an ArrayList of Objects. The object has five fields: id, date, name, value, adjusted_value. The list may hold multiple entries with the same name, and I am having trouble devising an efficient way to condense the list based on the name to where I will a list of similar objects but the values stored will be name, sum(value), sum(adjusted_value).
Is there an efficient way to do this? My current method has for loops inside of a do-while.
Clarfication:
I have a list of obejcts :
{id,date,name,value,ajusted_value},
{1,"10/30/2014","peaches",4,3}
{2,"10/30/2014","apples",2,2}
{3,"10/31/2014","peaches",3,1}
.
.
.
I want to condense to list based the name value to one that looks like this:
{null,null,"peaches",7,4}
{null,null,"apples",2,2}
.
.
.
However, I found that HashMap's put() functionality will perform what I desire automatically, but now I need to do this sort of action in Javascript if possible.
You can define a Map where the key is the name and value is the object instance.
Go through the list and for each instance check whether it exists in the map.
If not just add to the map. map.put(instance.name,instance)
If it's already added to the map just
mapInstance=map.get(instance.name);
mapInstance.value+=instance.value;
mapInstance.adjusted_value+=instance.adjusted_value;
After the loop you have the filled map with grouped data
I would use Guava in two step. Use a NameFunction to convert the list to a Multimap. Use a CondenseFunction to convert the values of the Multimap.
Function<MyClass, String> toName = new Function(){
public String apply(MyClass input){return input.name;}};
ImmutableListMultimap<String, MyClass> multimap = Multimaps.index(myList, toName);
Map<String, Collection<MyClass>> map = multimap.asMap();
Function<Collection<MyClass>, MyClass> condense= new Function(){
public MyClass apply(Collection<MyClass>input){
// create sums here
}};
Map<String, MyClass> condensed = Maps.transformValues(map, condense);
Collection<MyClass> result = condensed.getValues();
Multimaps.index()
Maps.transformValues

Void Class in HashMap as a Value object

I know the basic that a HasMap is a Key-Value pair but I want to have a HashMap with keys only(No Values)
I want to put below java snippet in my complex method(i.e HashMap with only Keys and no value associated to those Keys). My requirement is that i am processing a List of Duplicate Records, and during comparisons, I am keeping only one identifier value(from group of duplicates) in a HasMap which I can later compare that whether the system has already processed it or not.
Here is the code snippet(gives Compile time error as Void class is uninstantiable).
Map<Integer,Void> map=new HashMap<Integer, Void>();
//Some Logic goes here
map.put("ss",new Void());
Any suggestion/help to have a HasMap only Keys with no value are welcome.
Normally you would use a Set for such an issue, because there is no need to have a Key-Value structure when not using the value at all.
Correct Solution
Set<String> uniqueValues = new HashSet<String>();
uniqueValues.add( "a" );
uniqueValues.add( "a" );
assert uniqueValues.size() == 1;
Note this is just for completeness I would always use a Set for your requirement and the rest is more for fun/learning/confuse people:
Since Void has a private constructor so you can not create an instance with the new Keyword.
However there are at least two possibilities to put something in your Map.
Solution one is to add null as value. Because you do not need it anyway. And the second one would use reflection to ignore the private constructor of the Void class.
HACK SOLUTION
Map<String, Void> map = new HashMap<String,Void>();
Constructor<Void> constructor= (Constructor<Void>) Void.class.getDeclaredConstructors()[0];
constructor.setAccessible(true);
Void voidObj = constructor.newInstance();
map.put( "a", voidObj );
map.put( "a", voidObj );
assert map.size() == 1;
If I understand correctly you want a list where you can add keys but it should not allow to add duplicate keys. Then the solution is to use a Set(Oracle Documentation):
Set<Integer> mySet = new TreeSet<Integer>();
Java also provides a Hashset(Oracle Documentation)
Set<Integer> mySet = new HashSet<Integer>();
You may also need you own Comparator.
Why not just use another list? If you really need to use a HashMap for whatever reason, you can just add null values instead of void.
Map<Integer,Object> map=new HashMap<Integer, Object>();
map.put("ss", null);
Please do not do this. A HashMap is a Map which is a Key-Value-pair. A Map without values is not a Map.
If you want to store values without duplicates use a Set - a HashSet for example.
First of all the constructor of Void class is private, so the compiler will mark new Void() as error. Next, to prevent duplicates, you could just use a Set . Why not go with HashSet?.
Here's what javadoc says about Void -->
The Void class is an uninstantiable placeholder class to hold a
reference to the Class object representing the Java keyword void.

How to initiate multidimensional arraylist with different objects?

I'm having trouble trying to initiate an arraylist in which the first column I want to be a string, and the second column be a custom object.
For example column [0] be String, and column[1] be an Integer. Convention attempts of creating a multidimensional arraylist as in those used by int[][] or String[][] don't seem to work :( I would welcome any help. At this point I don't think it's something java allows. I can make it work for just one type of object but it's not what I want. Thanks!
Do you need an arraylist? You could create a Map<String, Object> or Map<String, Integer> or whatever you need..
Sure it does, but you weaken/eliminate type-checking:
Map myMap<String>, Integer> myData = new HashMap<String, Integer>();
Now your list of strings can be retrieved by myMap.keySet() and values can be retrieved by myMap.values(). Each of these return a Set, which you can easily convert to a List using the following code:
List<String> strings = new ArrayList<String>(myMap.keySet()); // get your strings
List<Integer> numbers = new ArrayList<Integer>(myMap.values(); // get your numbers
Good luck and if you should run into problems, do leave a comment.
Arrays are geared towards one specific type of thing - be they Object or String or int. Despite the fact that you're adding multiple dimensions to them, they still only hold one type of information.
What you would rather have is a mapping between two objects. This allows you to do the following:
Associate any key to a particular value
Eliminate duplicate key entries
Be much easier to access instead of array indexing
Here's an example. Say your custom object is a Cat, and you want to map the name of the owner to a particular Cat. You create a new instance of a Map.
Map<String, Cat> catOwners = new HashMap<>();
You can then put elements into it...
catOwners.put("Jamie", new Cat("Tycho"));
...and retrieve them with relative ease.
Cat currentCat = catOwners.get("Jamie"); // gets Jamie's cat
if you really want to, you can even iterate over them using the Map.Entry object provided with all Maps:
for(Map.Entry<String, Cat> element : catOwners.entrySet()) {
System.out.println(element.getKey()
+ " owns " + element.getValue().getName());
}
What you can do is use the generic Object type, and cast accordingly.

How to put Objects from one map to another?

I have a Map like this :
Map<String,GridCell> cellsMap
I pass this into a method and the return from that method should contain a Map(say answerMap) which contains all the entries of cellsMap map plus an extra entry that contains a String as the key and a String as the value . Something like :
Map<String,Object> answerMap = new ConcurrentHashMap<String,Object>();
//answer should first contain all the map entries of cellsMap and then add an extra entry like the following
answer.put(getId(), getSelectionValue()); // getSelectionValue() returns a String that contains coordinates of the selected cells.
return answerMap;
Have you considered the Map.putAll() method ?
e.g.
answerMap.putAll(cellsMap);
I don't think this is a good object model, by the way. I think you're better off creating a new class that contains your original map (maybe a copy) and an additional field for your String/String pair.
Otherwise you're throwing objects of different types into the same map, and that's going to make life complicated when you later extract that info. Each time you extract via a key you're going to have to check the type of the object returned. Note that ConcurrentHashMaps don't maintain insertion order.
Use clone() method.
HashMap answerMap = (HashMap)cellsMap.clone();
Map interface has putall() method which add all values of another object in Map.

Find a object key from a HashMap

I have a HashMap having key as my own object and key as ArrayList of String. Is there a way to get the key object from the map which is equal to another object without iterating the map. Please note that my object has implemented equals & hashcode. And it only uses 2 attribute of the class to compare. The another object which I am trying to find in the keys of the map has those 2 attribute equal but the other attributes may be different in the key of the map.
//The actual map
private HashMap<FileDetail, ArrayList<String>> map = new HashMap<FileDetail, ArrayList<String>>();
//object to search in above map without iteration.
FileDetail file = some object;
I want to get the reference of the "file" object in the keys of the map.
No you can't do that. HashMap are supposed to work the other way : you have the key, you're looking for the object.
If you have an object and you want to find the key, there's probably something wrong in your logic and your looking in a wrong direction to solve your problem.
If you don't want to iterate over the keySet, then you can use Guava's BiMap. A biMap has an inverse view which is another bimap containing reversed keys and values. This is how you would use it:
BiMap<FileDetail, ArrayList<String>> biMap = HashBiMap.create();
//object to search in above map without iteration.
FileDetail file = some object;
FileDetail key = biMap.inverse().get(biMap.get(file));
If you really need to do this without iteration over the keySet (e.g. because the map is very large), I suggest storing both the key and the list as values in the map. Either create some specific class encapsulating both, or use a simple pair class. The map would look like:
Map<FileDetail, Pair<FileDetail, List<String>>>
If you can't change the type of the map, you can use a second Map<FileDetail, FileDetail> where key and value are always the same objects.
This question is five years old, but I had the same question just today, and found this page. I thought I'd share the solution I decided upon using, which is not described in any of the existing answers and avoids iterating over all the keys in the map. (Please be gentle; this is my first posting on SO. It's tough finding questions I can answer that don't already have answers. Moreover, every question I've had to date has already been asked on SO. I've been using SO for years, with no ability to comment or vote on answers.)
As has been stated already, maps are designed so that when you have a key, you look up a value. That being the case, the answer is to use the key also as the value, so that when you perform a lookup using an arbitrary key, which equals your original key but is not necessarily == to it, you get back the original key. The issue then, is how to get what you originally intended to be the value.
My solution depends on having control of the class used for the key, and control of the map, with the ability to redefine them, which appears to be the case for the OP. In the OP's example, this would be control of the FileDetail class and of the private map variable. Assuming such control, the FileDetail class would be modified to contain a member variable of type ArrayList<String>, which for my sample code below I'll call list, with associated setter and getter methods. For the private map variable, it would be defined thusly:
private HashMap<FileDetail, FileDetail> map = new HashMap<>();
Now, when you want to put a new ArrayList<String> object in the map, assigned to a specific FileDetail key, you assign the ArrayList<String> object to the FileDetail's ArrayList<String> member variable instead, and then place the FileDetail object in the map.
public void putInMap(FileDetail fd, ArrayList<String> al) {
// Ignoring null conditions for simplicity...
fd.setList(al);
map.put(fd, fd);
}
Later, when you get some arbitrary FileDetail object (one that equals the key but isn't necessarily == to it), and you want the associated key, it's a matter of doing a normal lookup:
FileDetail otherFd = getArbitraryFileDetail();
FileDetail originalKeyFd = map.get(otherFd);
And to get the associated ArrayList<String> after having performed the above:
ArrayList<String> al = originalKeyFd.getList();
Certainly this all hinges on the implementations of the equals and hashCode methods of the FileDetail class, but the OP already had those methods defined as desired.
Hope this helps anyone who, like me, comes to this page with a similar situation.
You are likely looking for a Bidirectional Map, Apache Commons Collections includes this as part of the library (im sure there are other imeplementations as well.) A bidirectional map, just as the name implies, is a map but written so as to make looking up by key or by value efficient.
In Java, HashMap associates a key with a value, not the other way around.
You can retrieve a Set of all of the keys using HashMap.keySet(), or alternatively iterate over all of the entries using HashMap.entrySet():
for (Entry <FileDetail, ArrayList<String>> entry : map.entrySet()) {
FileDetail key = entry.getKey();
if (shouldProcess(key)) {
ArrayList<String> list = entry.getValue();
processList(list);
}
}
We get the key object from Hashmap without iterating the keyset of HashMap by converting keyset to ArrayList. This is a simple example:
//Creating hashmap
HashMap<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>();
//Adding elements into the map
map.put("1", "Amit");
map.put("2", "Ananth");
map.put("3", "Sunil");
//Get the list from keyset
ArrayList myKeyList = new ArrayList(map.keySet());
//object to search in above map without iteration.
String myobj = "3";
System.out.println(myKeyList.get(myKeyList.indexOf(myobj)));

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