List or Set??

[Andrew Hartman]

Hi
I will be storing URLs in a collection. But I don't want to have duplicate URLs in my collection. I have read that ArrayLists or LinkedLists can contain duplicate items so i think I should abstain from them.
I think I should use sets, but am sure which one to use. I can't work out which one would be more efficient? I suppose I could also check through my collection using the .contains() method.
Any advice please?

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

Since you probably don't need to keep the URLs sorted in some particular order, don't use TreeSet, which adds this ability, but at the cost of some performance. HashSet is usually your best bet.

[Jeffrey Hunter]

I agree with the use of HashSet. This way, you don't have to worry about the overhead of searching the the entire list (worst case), for a URL.

[Stan James]

Here's my crib sheet on collections:
http://www.surfscranton.com/architecture/JavaCollections.htm
I know there are other criteria to help choose which one to use. If you have other advice, lemme know and I'll add to this. Frinstance, I should mention that LinkedHashMap retains insertion order.