adding a key to HashMap without the value?

Question

Is there a way to add a key to a HashMap without also adding a value? I know it seems strange, but I have a HashMap> amd I wan

Answer 1

Since you're using a Map<String, List<Object>>, you're really looking for a multimap. I highly recommend using a third-party library such as Google Guava for this - see Guava's Multimaps.

Multimap<String, Object> myMultimap = ArrayListMultimap.create();

// fill it
myMultimap.put("hello", "hola");
myMultimap.put("hello", "buongiorno");
myMultimap.put("hello", "สวัสดี");

// retrieve
List<String> greetings = myMultimap.get("hello");
                      // ["hola", "buongiorno", "สวัสดี"]

---

Java 8 update: I'm no longer convinced that every Map<K, SomeCollection<V>> should be rewritten as a multimap. These days it's quite easy to get what you need without Guava, thanks to Map#computeIfAbsent().

Map<String, List<Object>> myMap = new HashMap<>();

// fill it
myMap.computeIfAbsent("hello", ignored -> new ArrayList<>())
  .addAll(Arrays.asList("hola", "buongiorno", "สวัสดี");

// retrieve
List<String> greetings = myMap.get("hello");
                      // ["hola", "buongiorno", "สวัสดี"]

Answer 2

//This program should answer your questions
import java.util.*;
public class attemptAddingtoHashMap { //Start of program

//MAIN METHOD #################################################

public static void main(String args[]) {  //main begins

Map<String, ArrayList<Object>> hmTrial = new HashMap<String, ArrayList<Object>>(); 

ArrayList alTrial = new ArrayList();//No values now

if (hmTrial.containsKey("first")) {
hmTrial.put("first", alTrial); }

else {hmTrial.put("first",alTrial);}
//in either case, alTrial, an ArrayList was mapped to the string "first"
//if you choose to, you can also add objects to alTrial later
System.out.println("hmTrial is " + hmTrial); //empty now
alTrial.add("h");
alTrial.add("e");
alTrial.add("l");
alTrial.add("l");
alTrial.add("o");
System.out.println("hmTrial is " + hmTrial);//populated now

   } //end of main
//#############################################################################################################

} //end of class

//Note - removing objects from alTrial will remove the from the hashmap
//You can copy, paste and run this code on https://ide.geeksforgeeks.org/

Answer 3

You can put null values. It is allowed by HashMap

You can also use a Set initially, and check it for the key, and then fill the map.

Answer 4

I'm not sure you want to do this. You can store null as a value for a key, but if you do how will be able to tell, when you do a .get("key") whether the key exists or if it does exist but with a null value? Anyway, see the docs.

Answer 5

Yes, it was confusing enough ;) I don't get why you want to store keys without values instead just putting empty arraylists instead of null.

Adding null may be a problem, because if you call

map.get("somekey");

and receive a null, then you do not know, if the key is not found or if it is present but maps to null...