Java Map

The Map interface is found in java.util and it allows collections to store items as key-value pairs. It is implemented in the HashMap and TreeMap classes. A Map allows its contents to be accessed as a set of keys, a set of values, or a set of key-value pairs. The data types of the keys and values are set when the Map is declared, and each can be any data type.

Syntax

MapClass<KeyDataType,ValueDataType> myMap = new MapClass<KeyDataType,ValueDataType>

The MapClass is a class that implements the Map interface, and is initialized with two generic types inside angle brackets < ... >. The generic data types for KeyDatatype and ValueDatatype can either be different or the same.

Methods

A Map class will implement the following methods:

• .clear(): removes all key-value pairs from the Map.
• .containsKey(key): returns true if key is one of the keys in the Map.
• .containsValue(value): returns true if value is one of the values in the Map.
• .get(key): returns the value of the given key from the Map.
• .put(key,value): adds a key-value pair to the Map.
• .remove(key): removes the key-value pair associated with key from the Map.
• .size(): returns an int that represents the number of key-value pairs in the Map.