For each loop on Java HashMap

Question

A basic chat program I wrote has several key words that generate special actions, images, messages, etc. I store all of the key words and special functions in a HashMap. Key wor

Answer 1

A better pattern here might be:

Value val = hashMap.get(user.getInput());
if (val != null) {
    doVal();
}
else {
    // handle normal, non-keyword/specfial function
}

which takes advantage of the fact that HashMap returns null if the key isn't contained in the Map.