DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Please enter at least three characters to search
Refcards Trend Reports
Events Video Library
Refcards
Trend Reports

Events

View Events Video Library

Zones

Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks

Modernize your data layer. Learn how to design cloud-native database architectures to meet the evolving demands of AI and GenAI workkloads.

Secure your stack and shape the future! Help dev teams across the globe navigate their software supply chain security challenges.

Releasing software shouldn't be stressful or risky. Learn how to leverage progressive delivery techniques to ensure safer deployments.

Avoid machine learning mistakes and boost model performance! Discover key ML patterns, anti-patterns, data strategies, and more.

Related

  • Two Cool Java Frameworks You Probably Don’t Need
  • Import a Function/Module in Dataweave
  • Yet 4 More Techniques for Writing Better Java
  • Injecting Implementations With Jakarta CDI Using Polymorphism

Trending

  • Simplify Authorization in Ruby on Rails With the Power of Pundit Gem
  • Chaos Engineering for Microservices
  • Scaling InfluxDB for High-Volume Reporting With Continuous Queries (CQs)
  • Analyzing “java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Failed to create a thread” Error
  1. DZone
  2. Coding
  3. Java
  4. One Method to Rule Them All: Map.merge()

One Method to Rule Them All: Map.merge()

Learn more about the one method here to rule them all!

By 
Tomasz Nurkiewicz user avatar
Tomasz Nurkiewicz
DZone Core CORE ·
Mar. 08, 19 · Tutorial
Likes (27)
Comment
Save
Tweet
Share
51.5K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

 I don’t often explain a single method in JDK, but when I do, it’s about Map.merge(). This is probably the most versatile operation in the key-value universe. But it's also rather obscure and rarely used.

merge() can be explained as follows: it either puts new value under the given key (if absent) or updates existing key with a given value (UPSERT). Let’s start with the most basic example: counting unique word occurrences. Pre-Java 8 (read: pre-2014!) code was quite messy and the essence was lost in implementation details:

var map = new HashMap<String, Integer>();
words.forEach(word -> {
    var prev = map.get(word);
    if (prev == null) {
        map.put(word, 1);
    } else {
        map.put(word, prev + 1);
    }
});


However, it works, and for the given input, it produces the desired output:

var words = List.of("Foo", "Bar", "Foo", "Buzz", "Foo", "Buzz", "Fizz", "Fizz");
//...
{Bar=1, Fizz=2, Foo=3, Buzz=2}


OK, but let’s try to refactor it to avoid conditional logic:

words.forEach(word -> {
    map.putIfAbsent(word, 0);
    map.put(word, map.get(word) + 1);
});


That’s nice!

putIfAbsent()  is a necessary evil; otherwise, the code breaks on the first occurrence of a previously unknown word. Also, I find map.get(word) insidemap.put() to be a bit awkward. Let’s get rid of it as well!

words.forEach(word -> {
    map.putIfAbsent(word, 0);
    map.computeIfPresent(word, (w, prev) -> prev + 1);
});


computeIfPresent() invokes the given transformation only if the key in question (word) exists. Otherwise, it does nothing. We made sure the key exists by initializing it to zero, so incrementation always works. Can we do better? Well, we can cut the extra initialization, but I wouldn’t recommend it:

words.forEach(word ->
        map.compute(word, (w, prev) -> prev != null ? prev + 1 : 1)
);


compute ()is likecomputeIfPresent(), but it is invoked irrespective to the existence of the given key. If the value for the key does not exist, the prevargument is null. Moving a simpleif to a ternary expression hidden in lambda is far from optimal. This is where themerge()operator shines. Before I show you the final version, let’s see a slightly simplified default implementation ofMap.merge():

default V merge(K key, V value, BiFunction<V, V, V> remappingFunction) {
    V oldValue = get(key);
    V newValue = (oldValue == null) ? value :
               remappingFunction.apply(oldValue, value);
    if (newValue == null) {
        remove(key);
    } else {
        put(key, newValue);
    }
    return newValue;
}


The code snippet is worth a thousand words. merge() works in two scenarios. If the given key is not present, it simply becomes put(key, value). However, if the said key already holds some value, our remappingFunction may merge (duh!) the old and the one. This function is free to:

  • overwrite old value by simply returning the new one: (old, new) -> new
  • keep the old value by simply returning the old one: (old, new) -> old
  • somehow merge the two, e.g.: (old, new) -> old + new
  • or even remove old value: (old, new) -> null

As you can see, merge() is quite versatile. So, how does our academic problem look like with merge()? It’s quite pleasing:

words.forEach(word ->
        map.merge(word, 1, (prev, one) -> prev + one)
);


You can read it as follows: put 1 under the word key if absent; otherwise, add 1 to the existing value. I named one of the parameters “ one” because in our example it’s always…  1.

Sadly, remappingFunctiontakes two parameters, where the second one is the value we are about to upsert (insert or update). Technically, we know this value already, so (word, 1, prev -> prev + 1)  would be much easier to digest. But there’s no such API.

All right, but is merge() really useful? Imagine you have an account operation (constructor, getters, and other useful properties omitted):

class Operation {
    private final String accNo;
    private final BigDecimal amount;
}


And a bunch of operations for different accounts:

var operations = List.of(
    new Operation("123", new BigDecimal("10")),
    new Operation("456", new BigDecimal("1200")),
    new Operation("123", new BigDecimal("-4")),
    new Operation("123", new BigDecimal("8")),
    new Operation("456", new BigDecimal("800")),
    new Operation("456", new BigDecimal("-1500")),
    new Operation("123", new BigDecimal("2")),
    new Operation("123", new BigDecimal("-6.5")),
    new Operation("456", new BigDecimal("-600"))
);


We would like to compute balance (total over operations’ amounts) for each account. Without merge(), this is quite cumbersome:

var balances = new HashMap<String, BigDecimal>();

operations.forEach(op -> {
    var key = op.getAccNo();
    balances.putIfAbsent(key, BigDecimal.ZERO);
    balances.computeIfPresent(key, (accNo, prev) -> prev.add(op.getAmount()));
});


But with a little help of merge():

operations.forEach(op ->
        balances.merge(op.getAccNo(), op.getAmount(), 
                (soFar, amount) -> soFar.add(amount))
);


Do you see a method reference opportunity here?

operations.forEach(op ->
        balances.merge(op.getAccNo(), op.getAmount(), BigDecimal::add)
);


I find this astoundingly readable. For each operation, add the given amount to the given accNo. The results are as expected:

{123=9.5, 456=-100}          


ConcurrentHashMap

Map.merge() shines even brighter when you realize it’s properly implemented inConcurrentHashMap. This means we can atomically perform an insert-or-update operation — single line and thread-safe.

ConcurrentHashMap is obviously thread-safe, but not across many operations, e.g. get() and thenput(). However, merge() makes sure no updates are lost.

IT Merge (version control) Implementation Java Development Kit Snippet (programming) Java (programming language) Property (programming)

Published at DZone with permission of Tomasz Nurkiewicz, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Related

  • Two Cool Java Frameworks You Probably Don’t Need
  • Import a Function/Module in Dataweave
  • Yet 4 More Techniques for Writing Better Java
  • Injecting Implementations With Jakarta CDI Using Polymorphism

Partner Resources

×

Comments
Oops! Something Went Wrong

The likes didn't load as expected. Please refresh the page and try again.

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Support and feedback
  • Community research
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Core Program
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 3343 Perimeter Hill Drive
  • Suite 100
  • Nashville, TN 37211
  • support@dzone.com

Let's be friends:

Likes
There are no likes...yet! 👀
Be the first to like this post!
It looks like you're not logged in.
Sign in to see who liked this post!