What are the differences between a HashMap and a Hashtable in Java?

Question

What are the differences between a HashMap and a Hashtable in Java?

Which is more efficient for non-threaded applications?

Answer 1

My small contribution :

1. First and most significant different between Hashtable and HashMap is that, HashMap is not thread-safe while Hashtable is a thread-safe collection.

2. Second important difference between Hashtable and HashMap is performance, since HashMap is not synchronized it perform better than Hashtable.

3. Third difference on Hashtable vs HashMap is that Hashtable is obsolete class and you should be using ConcurrentHashMap in place of Hashtable in Java.

Answer 2

Hashtable:

Hashtable is a data structure that retains values of key-value pair. It doesn’t allow null for both the keys and the values. You will get a NullPointerException if you add null value. It is synchronized. So it comes with its cost. Only one thread can access HashTable at a particular time.

Example :

import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Hashtable;

public class TestClass {

    public static void main(String args[ ]) {
    Map<Integer,String> states= new Hashtable<Integer,String>();
    states.put(1, "INDIA");
    states.put(2, "USA");

    states.put(3, null);    //will throw NullPointerEcxeption at runtime

    System.out.println(states.get(1));
    System.out.println(states.get(2));
//  System.out.println(states.get(3));

    }
}

HashMap:

HashMap is like Hashtable but it also accepts key value pair. It allows null for both the keys and the values. Its performance better is better than HashTable, because it is unsynchronized.

Example:

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

public class TestClass {

    public static void main(String args[ ]) {
    Map<Integer,String> states = new HashMap<Integer,String>();
    states.put(1, "INDIA");
    states.put(2, "USA");

    states.put(3, null);    // Okay
    states.put(null,"UK");

    System.out.println(states.get(1));
    System.out.println(states.get(2));
    System.out.println(states.get(3));

    }
}

Answer 3

Hashtable is considered legacy code. There's nothing about Hashtable that can't be done using HashMap or derivations of HashMap, so for new code, I don't see any justification for going back to Hashtable.

Answer 4

For threaded apps, you can often get away with ConcurrentHashMap- depends on your performance requirements.

Answer 5

1.Hashmap and HashTable both store key and value.

2.Hashmap can store one key as null. Hashtable can't store null.

3.HashMap is not synchronized but Hashtable is synchronized.

4.HashMap can be synchronized with Collection.SyncronizedMap(map)

Map hashmap = new HashMap();

Map map = Collections.SyncronizedMap(hashmap);

Answer 6

HashTable is a legacy class in the jdk that shouldn't be used anymore. Replace usages of it with ConcurrentHashMap. If you don't require thread safety, use HashMap which isn't threadsafe but faster and uses less memory.