Question

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Java associative-array

I have an array in PHP and I need a way to describe the same kind of array in Java. What’s the equivalence for Java?

<?php
$data = array(
    "Artist 1" => array(
        "Album 1" => array(
            array("id", "title", "genre", "length", "year"),
            array("id", "title", "genre", "length", "year"),
            array("id", "title", "genre", "length", "year")
        ),
        "Album 2" => array(
            array("id", "title", "genre", "length", "year"),
            array("id", "title", "genre", "length", "year"),
            array("id", "title", "genre", "length", "year")
        )
    ),
    "Artist 2" => array(
        "Album 1" => array(
            array("id", "title", "genre", "length", "year"),
            array("id", "title", "genre", "length", "year")
        )
    )
);
?>

Answer 1

With the updated example I would use

List<Record> records = ...
records.add(new Record("Artist 1", "Album 1", "id", "title", "genre", "length", "year"));
// etc

After that I would create an indexes required or even use a database like MySQL or load the data from a plain CSV

Artist 1,Album 1,id,title,genre,length,year
Artist 1,Album 1,id,title,genre,length,year
Artist 1,Album 2,id,title,genre,length,year
Artist 1,Album 2,id,title,genre,length,year
Artist 2,Album 1,id,title,genre,length,year

---

Unless there is a good reason to nest the data I would use a composite key

Map<String, List<String>> map = new LinkedHashMap<>();
map.put("1,1", Arrays.asList("abcdefgh", "abcdefgh", "abcdefgh"));
map.put("1,2", Arrays.asList("abcdefgh", "abcdefgh", "abcdefgh"));
map.put("2,1", Arrays.asList("abcdefgh", "abcdefgh"));

Java, being an Object Orientated language, it is preferable to use Objects to store your data structures where possible.