Java invert map

Solution 1:

The values in a map may not be unique. But if they are (in your case) you can do as you wrote in your question and create a generic method to convert it:

private static <V, K> Map<V, K> invert(Map<K, V> map) {

    Map<V, K> inv = new HashMap<V, K>();

    for (Entry<K, V> entry : map.entrySet())
        inv.put(entry.getValue(), entry.getKey());

    return inv;
}

Java 8:

public static <V, K> Map<V, K> invert(Map<K, V> map) {
    return map.entrySet()
              .stream()
              .collect(Collectors.toMap(Entry::getValue, Entry::getKey));
}

Example of usage:

public static void main(String[] args) {

    Map<String, Integer> map = new HashMap<String, Integer>();

    map.put("Hello", 0);
    map.put("World!", 1);

    Map<Integer, String> inv = invert(map);

    System.out.println(inv); // outputs something like "{0=Hello, 1=World!}"
}

Side note: the put(.., ..) method will return the the "old" value for a key. If it is not null you may throw a new IllegalArgumentException("Map values must be unique") or something like that.

Solution 2:

Take a look at Google Guava BiMap.

Example usage

Map<Integer, String> map = new HashMap<>();
map.put(1, "one");
map.put(2, "two");

Map<String, Integer> inverted = HashBiMap.create(map).inverse();

Solution 3:

To get an inverted form of a given map in java 8:

public static <K, V> Map<V, K> inverseMap(Map<K, V> sourceMap) {
    return sourceMap.entrySet().stream().collect(
        Collectors.toMap(Entry::getValue, Entry::getKey,
           (a, b) -> a) //if sourceMap has duplicate values, keep only first
        );
}

Example usage

Map<Integer, String> map = new HashMap<Integer, String>();

map.put(1, "one");
map.put(2, "two");

Map<String, Integer> inverted = inverseMap(map);