Map implementation with duplicate keys

Question

I want to have 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 its 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

You could simply pass an array of values for the value in a regular HashMap, thus simulating duplicate keys, and it would be up to you to decide what data to use.

You may also just use a MultiMap, although I do not like the idea of duplicate keys myself.

Answer 2

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 3

You are searching for a Multimap, and indeed both commons-collections and google-collections 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 google-collections as they are generics aware:

com.google.common.collect.Multimap

Answer 4

If you want iterate about a list of key-value-pairs (as you wrote in the comment), then a List or an array should be better. First combine your keys and values:

public class Pair
{
   public Class1 key;
   public Class2 value;

   public Pair(Class1 key, Class2 value)
   {
      this.key = key;
      this.value = value;
   }

}

Replace Class1 and Class2 with the types you want to use for keys and values.

Now you can put them into an array or a list and iterate over them:

Pair[] pairs = new Pair[10];
...
for (Pair pair : pairs)
{
   ...
}

Answer 5

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

Answer 6

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

Thanasis