Home/ Questions/Q 89645
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-10T22:44:56+00:00

I am reading log files but not all lines want to be processed straight

  • 0

I am reading log files but not all lines want to be processed straight away. I am using a queue / buffer to store the lines while they wait to be processed.

This queue is regularly scanned for particular lines – when they are found, they are removed from the queue (they can be anywhere in it). When there isn’t a particular line to be found, lines are taken out of the start of the queue one by one to be processed.

Therefore, the queue needs the following:

  • Able to be resized (or give that impression)
  • Have elements removed from anywhere
  • Have elements added (will always be at the end of the queue)
  • Be scanned quickly
  • Depending on performance, have a pointer of where it got to on the last scan.

I initially wrote the code when I had little experience of Java or the API, and just used an ArrayList because I knew it would work (not necessarily because it was the best option).

Its performance is now becoming poor with more and more logs needing to be processed – so, what collection would you recommend to be used in this situation? There’s always the possibility of writing my own too.

Thanks

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. LinkedHashSet might be of interest. It is effectively a HashSet but it also maintains a LinkedList to allow a predictable iteration order – and therefore can also be used as a FIFO queue, with the nice added benefit that it can’t contain duplicate entries.

    Because it is a HashSet too, searches (as opposed to scans) can be O(1) if they can match on equals()

    • 0