Question

Possible Duplicate:
How to sort a Map<Key, Value> on the values in Java?

I am using map interface to read from a file and then store the values in that as a key value pair. The file format is as follows

 A 34
 B 25
 c 50

I will read the datas from this file and store that as a key value pair and then I will display this to the user. My requirement is to display the results in this format

C 50
A 34
B 25

Thus I need to sort the map in descending order of the value. So that I will be able to display these as my result .. I have read about this and find the below code

static <K,V extends Comparable<? super V>> SortedSet<Map.Entry<K,V>> entriesSortedByValues(Map<K,V> map) {
        SortedSet<Map.Entry<K,V>> sortedEntries = new TreeSet<Map.Entry<K,V>>(
            new Comparator<Map.Entry<K,V>>() {
                @Override public int compare(Map.Entry<K,V> e1, Map.Entry<K,V> e2) {
                    int res = e1.getValue().compareTo(e2.getValue());
                    return res != 0 ? res : 1; // Special fix to preserve items with equal values
                }
            }
        );
        sortedEntries.addAll(map.entrySet());
        return sortedEntries;
    }

I hope this is gonna sort the values in ascending order, I just want to know whether this approach is correct or some other effective approach will be helpful for me ?

Answer 1

Since you can have duplicate values you shouldn’t be using a Set at all. Change to a List and sort it instead. Your entriesSortedByValues would look something like this:

static <K,V extends Comparable<? super V>> 
            List<Entry<K, V>> entriesSortedByValues(Map<K,V> map) {

    List<Entry<K,V>> sortedEntries = new ArrayList<Entry<K,V>>(map.entrySet());

    Collections.sort(sortedEntries, 
            new Comparator<Entry<K,V>>() {
                @Override
                public int compare(Entry<K,V> e1, Entry<K,V> e2) {
                    return e2.getValue().compareTo(e1.getValue());
                }
            }
    );

    return sortedEntries;
}

Note: in your example output the values is descending. If you want them ascending, use e1.getValue().compareTo(e2.getValue()) instead.

---

Example:

public static void main(String args[]) {

    Map<String, Integer> map = new HashMap<String, Integer>();
    map.put("A", 34);
    map.put("B", 25);
    map.put("C", 50);
    map.put("D", 50); // "duplicate" value

    System.out.println(entriesSortedByValues(map));
}

Output:

[D=50, C=50, A=34, B=25]