How can I initialise a static Map?

Question

How would you initialise a static Map in Java?

Method one: static initialiser
Method two: instance initialiser (anonymous subclass) or some other m

Answer 1

I do not like Static initializer syntax and I'm not convinced to anonymous subclasses. Generally, I agree with all cons of using Static initializers and all cons of using anonymous subclasses that were mentioned in previus answers. On the other hand - pros presented in these posts are not enough for me. I prefer to use static initialization method:

public class MyClass {
    private static final Map<Integer, String> myMap = prepareMap();

    private static Map<Integer, String> prepareMap() {
        Map<Integer, String> hashMap = new HashMap<>();
        hashMap.put(1, "one");
        hashMap.put(2, "two");

        return hashMap;
    }
}

Answer 2

One advantage to the second method is that you can wrap it with Collections.unmodifiableMap() to guarantee that nothing is going to update the collection later:

private static final Map<Integer, String> CONSTANT_MAP = 
    Collections.unmodifiableMap(new HashMap<Integer, String>() {{ 
        put(1, "one");
        put(2, "two");
    }});

 // later on...

 CONSTANT_MAP.put(3, "three"); // going to throw an exception!

Answer 3

If you want unmodifiable map, finally java 9 added a cool factory method of to Map interface. Similar method is added to Set, List as well.

Map<String, String> unmodifiableMap = Map.of("key1", "value1", "key2", "value2");

Answer 4

With Eclipse Collections, all of the following will work:

import java.util.Map;

import org.eclipse.collections.api.map.ImmutableMap;
import org.eclipse.collections.api.map.MutableMap;
import org.eclipse.collections.impl.factory.Maps;

public class StaticMapsTest
{
    private static final Map<Integer, String> MAP =
        Maps.mutable.with(1, "one", 2, "two");

    private static final MutableMap<Integer, String> MUTABLE_MAP =
       Maps.mutable.with(1, "one", 2, "two");


    private static final MutableMap<Integer, String> UNMODIFIABLE_MAP =
        Maps.mutable.with(1, "one", 2, "two").asUnmodifiable();


    private static final MutableMap<Integer, String> SYNCHRONIZED_MAP =
        Maps.mutable.with(1, "one", 2, "two").asSynchronized();


    private static final ImmutableMap<Integer, String> IMMUTABLE_MAP =
        Maps.mutable.with(1, "one", 2, "two").toImmutable();


    private static final ImmutableMap<Integer, String> IMMUTABLE_MAP2 =
        Maps.immutable.with(1, "one", 2, "two");
}

You can also statically initialize primitive maps with Eclipse Collections.

import org.eclipse.collections.api.map.primitive.ImmutableIntObjectMap;
import org.eclipse.collections.api.map.primitive.MutableIntObjectMap;
import org.eclipse.collections.impl.factory.primitive.IntObjectMaps;

public class StaticPrimitiveMapsTest
{
    private static final MutableIntObjectMap<String> MUTABLE_INT_OBJ_MAP =
            IntObjectMaps.mutable.<String>empty()
                    .withKeyValue(1, "one")
                    .withKeyValue(2, "two");

    private static final MutableIntObjectMap<String> UNMODIFIABLE_INT_OBJ_MAP =
            IntObjectMaps.mutable.<String>empty()
                    .withKeyValue(1, "one")
                    .withKeyValue(2, "two")
                    .asUnmodifiable();

    private static final MutableIntObjectMap<String> SYNCHRONIZED_INT_OBJ_MAP =
            IntObjectMaps.mutable.<String>empty()
                    .withKeyValue(1, "one")
                    .withKeyValue(2, "two")
                    .asSynchronized();

    private static final ImmutableIntObjectMap<String> IMMUTABLE_INT_OBJ_MAP =
            IntObjectMaps.mutable.<String>empty()
                    .withKeyValue(1, "one")
                    .withKeyValue(2, "two")
                    .toImmutable();

    private static final ImmutableIntObjectMap<String> IMMUTABLE_INT_OBJ_MAP2 =
            IntObjectMaps.immutable.<String>empty()
                    .newWithKeyValue(1, "one")
                    .newWithKeyValue(2, "two");
} 

Note: I am a committer for Eclipse Collections

Answer 5

I like anonymous class, because it is easy to deal with it:

public static final Map<?, ?> numbers = Collections.unmodifiableMap(new HashMap<Integer, String>() {
    {
        put(1, "some value");
                    //rest of code here
    }
});

Answer 6

As usual apache-commons has proper method MapUtils.putAll(Map, Object[]):

For example, to create a color map:

Map<String, String> colorMap = MapUtils.putAll(new HashMap<String, String>(), new String[][] {
     {"RED", "#FF0000"},
     {"GREEN", "#00FF00"},
     {"BLUE", "#0000FF"}
 });