Get keys on the basis of values in any Collection

Hi,

Is there any way to get keys on the basis of values in any Collection. Actually my collection looks like this -

Service1 Start
Service2 Stop
Service3 Start
Service4 Start
Service5 Stop

Now I want to get all keys whose values are 'Stop' in a sorted manner. Please give any idea or if any other way ..

Thanks in advance.

Are those keys? You usually only have keys if you are using a Map.

Do you mean to sort the elements? You will need to learn how to work a Comparator.
How about iterating through your Collection, finding the elements, and if they have "stop" in adding them to a new Collection. If you want them in order, use a List.
If you want them sorted, try a TreeSet and a Comparator (but read the TreeSet API carefully first; "start" and "stop" might not work in a TreeSet) OR a List and sort the List.
I presume you are familiar with the Collections Framework? Java Tutorial link here.

Do you really mean Collection? Have you got a Map there?

Hi Campbell,

Thanks for your quick reply.

I have a HashMap where I am putting some services as keys and there status (start or stop) as values. Now, I just want to get all services which have status as start (or sometimes stop). So, basically I want to get keys on the basis of values. To solve this I have implemented following code and it is working for me but still have some problem that the values are not coming in sorted manner.

HashMap map = new HashMap();

map.put("service1","start");
map.put("service2","stop");
map.put("service3","start");
map.put("service4","start");
map.put("service5","stop");

Set set = map.entrySet();
Iterator it = set.iterator();
while (it.hasNext())
{
Map.Entry me =(Map.Entry) it.next();
String val = (String)me.getValue();

if(val.equalsIgnoreCase("start"))
{
System.out.println("Service Started - " + me.getKey());
}
}
Thanks

Would it be possible to have two separate collections for stop and start?

Sometimes it makes sense to store elements in several collections:

Hi SaurabhSri ,
I think you can assign some constants ( priority value)to all the services and use them as key.
And once you get list/array of keys (after comparing values("start")). You can sort them as well.and execute your services accordingly.
Could be some better solution exists.

It sounds like you want a two-way map. There's none in the JDK, but you can easily make one, by combining two HashMaps. One would take the service name as key and status as value, the other would take status as key and name as value. You must make sure that you always add to both maps and remove from both maps.

I thought you had a Map and not a Collection.
You have found the entrySet() method, and you can get all the keys and all the values out into their own Sets, Lists or whatever. Or, as you can see, you can iterate through the Set.

Peter Chase's suggestion is very good as an alternative.

You will probably find your Iterator easier to handle if you generify it.

Originally posted by Peter Chase:
It sounds like you want a two-way map. There's none in the JDK, but you can easily make one, by combining two HashMaps. One would take the service name as key and status as value, the other would take status as key and name as value. You must make sure that you always add to both maps and remove from both maps.

The only problem with that approach is that one of the Maps will have only "start" and "stop" as its keys.

Hi,

Using two Hash maps doesn't make sense for me. I have taken some different approach here. Now, my Hash map is having status as key and list of services as values and I am cool with this.

Thanks a lot to all of you for your help.

Originally posted by Peter Chase:
It sounds like you want a two-way map. There's none in the JDK, but you can easily make one, by combining two HashMaps.

Or simply use an existing open source implementation: http://commons.apache.org/collections/api-3.1/org/apache/commons/collections/BidiMap.html

With the status as the key, it might be easier to just use two Lists (startList and stopList, for instance) and forget about the HashMap altogether. Basically, if you know all the possible keys beforehand, and there's only very few of them, using a Map might not be the best way.

Originally posted by Ilja Preuss:

Or simply use an existing open source implementation: http://commons.apache.org/collections/api-3.1/org/apache/commons/collections/BidiMap.html

The documentation of the BidiMap interface says that in such a Map, no two keys must map to the same value so inversion is unambiguous. So using the BidiMap might not be the best approach in this particular case.

Do you know of some other bidirectional Map where the inversion is defined in terms of values being mapped to Sets of keys? Or maybe just a Map providing an inverse lookup method like

[ May 05, 2008: Message edited by: Guido Sautter ]