Key existence check in HashMap

Question

Is checking for key existence in HashMap always necessary?

I have a HashMap with say a 1000 entries and I am looking at improving the efficiency. If the HashMap is b

Answer 1

Do you ever store a null value? If not, you can just do:

Foo value = map.get(key);
if (value != null) {
    ...
} else {
    // No such key
}

Otherwise, you could just check for existence if you get a null value returned:

Foo value = map.get(key);
if (value != null) {
    ...
} else {
    // Key might be present...
    if (map.containsKey(key)) {
       // Okay, there's a key but the value is null
    } else {
       // Definitely no such key
    }
}