1. Overview
In this tutorial we’ll illustrate the most useful ways you can leverage Guava to work with Java Maps.
Let’s start very simple and create a HashMap without the new operator, using Guava:
Map<String, String> aNewMap = Maps.newHashMap();
2. ImmutableMap
Next – let’s see how to create ImmutableMap using Guava:
@Test
public void whenCreatingImmutableMap_thenCorrect() {
Map<String, Integer> salary = ImmutableMap.<String, Integer> builder()
.put("John", 1000)
.put("Jane", 1500)
.put("Adam", 2000)
.put("Tom", 2000)
.build();
assertEquals(1000, salary.get("John").intValue());
assertEquals(2000, salary.get("Tom").intValue());
}
3. SortedMap
Now – let’s take a look at creating and working with a SortedMap.
In the following example – we’re creating a sorted map using the corresponding Guava builder:
@Test
public void whenUsingSortedMap_thenKeysAreSorted() {
ImmutableSortedMap<String, Integer> salary = new ImmutableSortedMap
.Builder<String, Integer>(Ordering.natural())
.put("John", 1000)
.put("Jane", 1500)
.put("Adam", 2000)
.put("Tom", 2000)
.build();
assertEquals("Adam", salary.firstKey());
assertEquals(2000, salary.lastEntry().getValue().intValue());
}
4. BiMap
Next – let’s discuss how to use BiMap. We can use BiMap to map keys back to values as it makes sure the values are unique.
In the following example – we create a BiMap and the we get its inverse():
@Test
public void whenCreateBiMap_thenCreated() {
BiMap<String, Integer> words = HashBiMap.create();
words.put("First", 1);
words.put("Second", 2);
words.put("Third", 3);
assertEquals(2, words.get("Second").intValue());
assertEquals("Third", words.inverse().get(3));
}
5. Multimap
Now – let’s take a look at Multimap.
We can use Multimap to associate each key with multiple values as in the following example:
@Test
public void whenCreateMultimap_thenCreated() {
Multimap<String, String> multimap = ArrayListMultimap.create();
multimap.put("fruit", "apple");
multimap.put("fruit", "banana");
multimap.put("pet", "cat");
multimap.put("pet", "dog");
assertThat(multimap.get("fruit"), containsInAnyOrder("apple", "banana"));
assertThat(multimap.get("pet"), containsInAnyOrder("cat", "dog"));
}
5. Table
Let’s now take a look at the Guava Table; we use Table if we need more than one key to index a value.
In the following example – we’re going to use a table to store the distances between cities:
@Test
public void whenCreatingTable_thenCorrect() {
Table<String,String,Integer> distance = HashBasedTable.create();
distance.put("London", "Paris", 340);
distance.put("New York", "Los Angeles", 3940);
distance.put("London", "New York", 5576);
assertEquals(3940, distance.get("New York", "Los Angeles").intValue());
assertThat(distance.columnKeySet(),
containsInAnyOrder("Paris", "New York", "Los Angeles"));
assertThat(distance.rowKeySet(), containsInAnyOrder("London", "New York"));
}
We can also use Tables.transpose() to flip the row and column keys as in the following example:
@Test
public void whenTransposingTable_thenCorrect() {
Table<String,String,Integer> distance = HashBasedTable.create();
distance.put("London", "Paris", 340);
distance.put("New York", "Los Angeles", 3940);
distance.put("London", "New York", 5576);
Table<String, String, Integer> transposed = Tables.transpose(distance);
assertThat(transposed.rowKeySet(),
containsInAnyOrder("Paris", "New York", "Los Angeles"));
assertThat(transposed.columnKeySet(), containsInAnyOrder("London", "New York"));
}
6. ClassToInstanceMap
Next – Let’s take a look at ClassToInstanceMap. We can use ClassToInstanceMap if we want the object’s class to be the key as in the following example:
@Test
public void whenCreatingClassToInstanceMap_thenCorrect() {
ClassToInstanceMap<Number> numbers = MutableClassToInstanceMap.create();
numbers.putInstance(Integer.class, 1);
numbers.putInstance(Double.class, 1.5);
assertEquals(1, numbers.get(Integer.class));
assertEquals(1.5, numbers.get(Double.class));
}
7. Group List Using Multimap
Next – let’s see how to group a List using Multimap. In the following example – we group a List of names by their length using Multimaps.index():
@Test
public void whenGroupingListsUsingMultimap_thenGrouped() {
List<String> names = Lists.newArrayList("John", "Adam", "Tom");
Function<String,Integer> func = new Function<String,Integer>(){
public Integer apply(String input) {
return input.length();
}
};
Multimap<Integer, String> groups = Multimaps.index(names, func);
assertThat(groups.get(3), containsInAnyOrder("Tom"));
assertThat(groups.get(4), containsInAnyOrder("John", "Adam"));
}
8. Conclusion
In this quick tutorial we discussed the most common and useful usecases of working with Maps using the Guava library.
The implementation of all these examples and code snippets can be found in my Guava GitHub project – this is an Eclipse-based project, so it should be easy to import and run as it is.
