Java Hashmap: How to get key from value?

Question

If I have the value \"foo\", and a HashMap ftw for which ftw.containsValue(\"foo\") returns true, how can I

Answer 1

There is no unambiguous answer, because multiple keys can map to the same value. If you are enforcing unique-ness with your own code, the best solution is to create a class that uses two Hashmaps to track the mappings in both directions.

Answer 2

For Android development targeting API < 19, Vitalii Fedorenko one-to-one relationship solution doesn't work because Objects.equals isn't implemented. Here's a simple alternative:

public <K, V> K getKeyByValue(Map<K, V> map, V value) {
    for (Map.Entry<K, V> entry : map.entrySet()) {
            if (value.equals(entry.getValue())) {
            return entry.getKey();
        }
    }
    return null;
}

Answer 3

public static class SmartHashMap <T1 extends Object, T2 extends Object> {
    public HashMap<T1, T2> keyValue;
    public HashMap<T2, T1> valueKey;

    public SmartHashMap(){
        this.keyValue = new HashMap<T1, T2>();
        this.valueKey = new HashMap<T2, T1>();
    }

    public void add(T1 key, T2 value){
        this.keyValue.put(key, value);
        this.valueKey.put(value, key);
    }

    public T2 getValue(T1 key){
        return this.keyValue.get(key);
    }

    public T1 getKey(T2 value){
        return this.valueKey.get(value);
    }

}

Answer 4

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.HashSet;
import java.util.Set;

public class ValueKeysMap<K, V> extends HashMap <K,V>{
    HashMap<V, Set<K>> ValueKeysMap = new HashMap<V, Set<K>>();

    @Override
    public boolean containsValue(Object value) {
        return ValueKeysMap.containsKey(value);
    }

    @Override
    public V put(K key, V value) {
        if (containsValue(value)) {
            Set<K> keys = ValueKeysMap.get(value);
            keys.add(key);
        } else {
            Set<K> keys = new HashSet<K>();
            keys.add(key);
            ValueKeysMap.put(value, keys);
        }
        return super.put(key, value);
    }

    @Override
    public V remove(Object key) {
        V value = super.remove(key);
        Set<K> keys = ValueKeysMap.get(value);
        keys.remove(key);
        if(keys.size() == 0) {
           ValueKeysMap.remove(value);
        }
        return value;
    }

    public Set<K> getKeys4ThisValue(V value){
        Set<K> keys = ValueKeysMap.get(value);
        return keys;
    }

    public boolean valueContainsThisKey(K key, V value){
        if (containsValue(value)) {
            Set<K> keys = ValueKeysMap.get(value);
            return keys.contains(key);
        }
        return false;
    }

    /*
     * Take care of argument constructor and other api's like putAll
     */
}

Answer 5

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.Set;

public class M{
public static void main(String[] args) {

        HashMap<String, List<String>> resultHashMap = new HashMap<String, List<String>>();

        Set<String> newKeyList = resultHashMap.keySet();


        for (Iterator<String> iterator = originalHashMap.keySet().iterator(); iterator.hasNext();) {
            String hashKey = (String) iterator.next();

            if (!newKeyList.contains(originalHashMap.get(hashKey))) {
                List<String> loArrayList = new ArrayList<String>();
                loArrayList.add(hashKey);
                resultHashMap.put(originalHashMap.get(hashKey), loArrayList);
            } else {
                List<String> loArrayList = resultHashMap.get(originalHashMap
                        .get(hashKey));
                loArrayList.add(hashKey);
                resultHashMap.put(originalHashMap.get(hashKey), loArrayList);
            }
        }

        System.out.println("Original HashMap : " + originalHashMap);
        System.out.println("Result HashMap : " + resultHashMap);
    }
}

Answer 6

If your data structure has many-to-one mapping between keys and values you should iterate over entries and pick all suitable keys:

public static <T, E> Set<T> getKeysByValue(Map<T, E> map, E value) {
    Set<T> keys = new HashSet<T>();
    for (Entry<T, E> entry : map.entrySet()) {
        if (Objects.equals(value, entry.getValue())) {
            keys.add(entry.getKey());
        }
    }
    return keys;
}

In case of one-to-one relationship, you can return the first matched key:

public static <T, E> T getKeyByValue(Map<T, E> map, E value) {
    for (Entry<T, E> entry : map.entrySet()) {
        if (Objects.equals(value, entry.getValue())) {
            return entry.getKey();
        }
    }
    return null;
}

In Java 8:

public static <T, E> Set<T> getKeysByValue(Map<T, E> map, E value) {
    return map.entrySet()
              .stream()
              .filter(entry -> Objects.equals(entry.getValue(), value))
              .map(Map.Entry::getKey)
              .collect(Collectors.toSet());
}

Also, for Guava users, BiMap may be useful. For example:

BiMap<Token, Character> tokenToChar = 
    ImmutableBiMap.of(Token.LEFT_BRACKET, '[', Token.LEFT_PARENTHESIS, '(');
Token token = tokenToChar.inverse().get('(');
Character c = tokenToChar.get(token);