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up vote 7 down vote favorite
2

I am always tired of the very verbose syntax in Java for creating small maps. Arrays.asList(T... a) is very convenient, and therefore I want something similar for a map.

public class MapUtils {
    public static <K, V> MapBuilder<K, V> asMap(K key, V value) {
        return new MapBuilder<K, V>().entry(key, value);
    }

    public static class MapBuilder<K, V> extends HashMap<K, V> {
        public MapBuilder<K, V> entry(K key, V value) {
            this.put(key, value);
            return this;
        }
    }
}

/* Example of how to use asMap */
public class Example {
    public void example() {
        Map<String, String> map = MapUtil.asMap("key", "value").entry("key2", "value2");
    }
}

/* Example of how the one way to create an inline Map in Java */
public class Before {
    public void before() {
        Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>() {{
            put("key", value");
            put("key2", value2");
        }};
    }
}

Any inputs on how to improve this implementation of MapUtils? Do you consider the asMap-function a good idea, or am I too lazy to write some extra characters?

share|improve this question
Looks nice to me. But Landeis solution seems reasonable. :) – user unknown Jul 1 '11 at 21:33

2 Answers

up vote 5 down vote accepted

In my opinion MapBuilder should contain a Map, not extend one. Another possible design would be to use a single call with varargs:

public class MapUtil {
    public static <K,V> Map<K,V> asMap(Map.Entry<K,V>... entries) {
        Map<K,V> map = new HashMap<K,V>();
        for(Map.Entry<K,V> entry : entries) {
            map.put(entry.getKey(), entry.getValue());
        }
        return map;
    }

    public static <K,V> Map.Entry<K,V> e(final K k, final V v) {
        return new Map.Entry<K, V>() {
            public K getKey() {
                return k;
            }
            public V getValue() {
                return v;
            }
            public V setValue(V value) {
                throw new UnsupportedOperationException("Not supported");
            }
        };
    }
} 

import static very.useful.MapUtil.*;
... 
Map<String, Integer> map = asMap(e("x",1),e("y",2),e("z",3));
share|improve this answer
Well, well, but e? Just e? A bit aggressive and cryptic. – user unknown Jul 1 '11 at 21:35
I used e for "entry", but of course this is a matter of taste. The best thing would be an operator as in Scala (here ->), but the only symbolic things we have for Java names are $ and _. Hmmm, maybe we should use $$ for pairs, that would make at least a little bit sense. – Landei Jul 3 '11 at 8:33
1  
Well, or maybe entry for entry? :) – user unknown Jul 3 '11 at 14:36
@user unknown: IMHO that would be too long. – Landei Jul 3 '11 at 18:07
I don't like the e-function either, but I guess it is a necessary evil. – smat Jul 4 '11 at 12:29
up vote 4 down vote

google-collections has all about it, e.g. ImmutableMap.of(). Moreover they teach using right data structure, like true immutable collections, ordered lists etc. I really enjoyed it.

Google Collections is now part of Google Guava, and it includes ImmutableMap.Builder. With this you can do:

   static final ImmutableMap<String, Integer> WORD_TO_INT =
   new ImmutableMap.Builder<String, Integer>()
       .put("one", 1)
       .put("two", 2)
       .put("three", 3)
       .build();

You can call the put(K, V) method as many times as you like. Builders are great for this kind of situation.

share|improve this answer
Nice tip with google-collections. But it only supports up to five entries. – smat Jul 4 '11 at 12:30
I have edited this answer with an example of using ImmutableMap.Builder, which gets around the 5 entries limit. I'm waiting for it to be peer reviewed. – Rich Jul 6 '11 at 11:26

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