Question

Am I correct in assuming that if you have an object that is contained inside a Java Set<> (or as a key in a Map<> for that matter), any fields that are used to determine identity or relation (via hashCode(), equals(), compareTo() etc.) cannot be changed without causing unspecified behavior for operations on the collection? (edit: as alluded to in this other question)

(In other words, these fields should either be immutable, or you should require the object to be removed from the collection, then changed, then reinserted.)

The reason I ask is that I was reading the Hibernate Annotations reference guide and it has an example where there is a HashSet<Toy> but the Toy class has fields name and serial that are mutable and are also used in the hashCode() calculation… a red flag went off in my head and I just wanted to make sure I understood the implications of it.

Answer 1

The javadoc for Set says

Note: Great care must be exercised if
mutable objects are used as set
elements. The behavior of a set is not
specified if the value of an object is
changed in a manner that affects
equals comparisons while the object is
an element in the set. A special case
of this prohibition is that it is not
permissible for a set to contain
itself as an element.

This simply means you can use mutable objects in a set, and even change them. You just should make sure the change doesn’t impact the way the Set finds the items. For HashSet, that would require not changing the fields used for calculating hashCode().