How do I access nested HashMaps in Java?

Question

I have a HashMap in Java, the contents of which (as you all probably know) can be accessed by

HashMap.get(\"keyname\");

If a have a HashMap

Answer 1

I prefer creating a custom map that extends HashMap. Then just override get() to add extra logic so that if the map doesnt contain your key. It will a create a new instance of the nested map, add it, then return it.

public class KMap<K, V> extends HashMap<K, V> {

    public KMap() {
        super();
    }

    @Override
    public V get(Object key) {
        if (this.containsKey(key)) {
            return super.get(key);
        } else {
            Map<K, V> value = new KMap<K, V>();
            super.put((K)key, (V)value);
            return (V)value;
        }
    }
}

Now you can use it like so:

Map<Integer, Map<Integer, Map<String, Object>>> nestedMap = new KMap<Integer, Map<Integer, Map<String, Object>>>();

Map<String, Object> map = (Map<String, Object>) nestedMap.get(1).get(2);
Object obj= new Object();
map.put(someKey, obj);

Answer 2

If you plan on constructing HashMaps with variable depth, use a recursive data structure.

Below is an implementation providing a sample interface:

class NestedMap<K, V> {

    private final HashMap<K, NestedMap> child;
    private V value;

    public NestedMap() {
        child = new HashMap<>();
        value = null;
    }

    public boolean hasChild(K k) {
        return this.child.containsKey(k);
    }

    public NestedMap<K, V> getChild(K k) {
        return this.child.get(k);
    }

    public void makeChild(K k) {
        this.child.put(k, new NestedMap());
    }

    public V getValue() {
        return value;
    }

    public void setValue(V v) {
        value = v;
    }
}

and example usage:

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

        NestedMap<Character, String> m = new NestedMap<>();

        m.makeChild('f');
        m.getChild('f').makeChild('o');
        m.getChild('f').getChild('o').makeChild('o');
        m.getChild('f').getChild('o').getChild('o').setValue("bar");

        System.out.println(
            "nested element at 'f' -> 'o' -> 'o' is " +
            m.getChild('f').getChild('o').getChild('o').getValue());
    }
}

Answer 3

You can get the nested value by repeating .get(), but with deeply nested maps you have to do a lot of casting into Map. An easier way is to use a generic method for getting a nested value.

Implementation

public static <T> T getNestedValue(Map map, String... keys) {
    Object value = map;

    for (String key : keys) {
        value = ((Map) value).get(key);
    }

    return (T) value;
}

Usage

// Map contents with string and even a list:
{
  "data": {
    "vehicles": {
      "list": [
        {
          "registration": {
            "owner": {
              "id": "3643619"
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

List<Map> list = getNestedValue(mapContents, "data", "vehicles", "list");
Map first = list.get(0);
String id = getNestedValue(first, "registration", "owner", "id");

Answer 4

Yes, if you use the proper generic type signature for the outer hashmap.

HashMap<String, HashMap<String, Foo>> hm = new HashMap<String, HashMap<String, Foobar>>();
// populate the map
hm.get("keyname").get("nestedkeyname");

If you're not using generics, you'd have to do a cast to convert the object retrieved from the outer hash map to a HashMap (or at least a Map) before you could call its get() method. But you should be using generics ;-)