Removing the “first” object from a Set

Question

Under certain situations, I need to evict the oldest element in a Java Set. The set is implemented using a LinkedHashSet, which makes this simple: just get rid of t

Answer 1

if (!mySet.isEmpty())
  mySet.remove(mySet.iterator.next());

seems to be less than 3 lines.

You have to synchronize around it of course if your set is shared by multiple threads.

Answer 2

With guava:

if (!set.isEmpty() && set.size() >= MAX_SET_SIZE) {
    set.remove(Iterables.get(set, 0));
}

I will also suggest an alternative approach. Yes, it it changing the implementation, but not drastically: extend LinkedHashSet and have that condition in the add method:

public LimitedLinkedHashSet<E> extends LinkedHashSet<E> {
    public void add(E element) {
         super.add(element);
         // your 5-line logic from above or my solution with guava
    }
}

It's still 5 line, but it is invisible to the code that's using it. And since this is actually a specific behaviour of the set, it is logical to have it within the set.

Answer 3

Quick and dirty one-line solution: mySet.remove(mySet.toArray(new Foo[mySet.size()])[0]) ;)

However, I'd still go for the iterator solution, since this would be more readable and should also be faster.

Edit: I'd go for Mike Samuel's solution. :)

Answer 4

LinkedHashSet is a wrapper for LinkedHashMap which supports a simple "remove oldest" policy. To use it as a Set you can do

Set<String> set = Collections.newSetFromMap(new LinkedHashMap<String, Boolean>(){
    protected boolean removeEldestEntry(Map.Entry<String, Boolean> eldest) {
        return size() > MAX_ENTRIES;
    }
});

Answer 5

If you really need to do this at several places in your code, just write a static method.

The other solutions proposed are often slower since they imply calling the Set.remove(Object) method instead of the Iterator.remove() method.

@Nullable
public static <T> T removeFirst(Collection<? extends T> c) {
  Iterator<? extends T> it = c.iterator();
  if (!it.hasNext()) { return null; }
  T removed = it.next();
  it.remove();
  return removed;
}

Answer 6

I think the way you're doing it is fine. Is this something you do often enough to be worth finding a shorter way? You could do basically the same thing with Guava like this:

Iterables.removeIf(Iterables.limit(mySet, 1), Predicates.alwaysTrue());

That adds the small overhead of wrapping the set and its iterator for limiting and then calling the alwaysTrue() predicate once... doesn't seem especially worth it to me though.

Edit: To put what I said in a comment in an answer, you could create a SetMultimap that automatically restricts the number of values it can have per key like this:

SetMultimap<K, V> multimap = Multimaps.newSetMultimap(map,
    new Supplier<Set<V>>() {
      public Set<V> get() {
        return Sets.newSetFromMap(new LinkedHashMap<V, Boolean>() {
          @Override protected boolean removeEldestEntry(Entry<K, V> eldestEntry) {
            return size() > MAX_SIZE;
          }
        });
      }
    });