java-collection-questions-02.md

title	category	tag	head
Summary of Common Java Collection Interview Questions (Part 2)	Java	Java Collections	meta name content keywords HashMap, ConcurrentHashMap, Hashtable, List, Set meta name content description A summary of common knowledge points and interview questions about Java collections, hoping to be helpful to you!

Map (Important)

Differences Between HashMap and Hashtable

• Thread Safety: HashMap is not thread-safe, while Hashtable is thread-safe because most of its internal methods are synchronized. (If you need to ensure thread safety, use ConcurrentHashMap!)
• Efficiency: Due to thread safety issues, HashMap is generally more efficient than Hashtable. Additionally, Hashtable is largely obsolete and should not be used in code.
• Support for Null Keys and Values: HashMap can store null keys and values, but only one null key is allowed, while multiple null values can be stored. Hashtable does not allow null keys or values, and will throw a NullPointerException if attempted.
• Initial Capacity and Growth Size Differences: ① If no initial capacity is specified during creation, Hashtable defaults to an initial size of 11, and each subsequent growth increases the capacity to 2n+1. HashMap defaults to an initial size of 16, and each subsequent growth doubles the capacity. ② If an initial capacity is specified, Hashtable uses that size directly, while HashMap expands it to the next power of 2 (the tableSizeFor() method in HashMap ensures this, and the source code is provided below). This means HashMap always uses powers of 2 for the hash table size, which will be explained later.
• Underlying Data Structure: After JDK 1.8, HashMap has undergone significant changes in handling hash collisions. When the length of a linked list exceeds a threshold (default is 8), it converts the list into a red-black tree (before converting to a red-black tree, it checks if the current array length is less than 64; if so, it opts for array expansion instead of conversion to a red-black tree) to reduce search time (this process will be analyzed in conjunction with the source code later). Hashtable does not have such a mechanism.
• Hash Function Implementation: HashMap applies a high and low bit mixing disturbance to the hash value to reduce collisions, while Hashtable directly uses the key's hashCode() value.

Constructor of HashMap with Initial Capacity:

    public HashMap(int initialCapacity, float loadFactor) {
        if (initialCapacity < 0)
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Illegal initial capacity: " +
                                               initialCapacity);
        if (initialCapacity > MAXIMUM_CAPACITY)
            initialCapacity = MAXIMUM_CAPACITY;
        if (loadFactor <= 0 || Float.isNaN(loadFactor))
            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Illegal load factor: " +
                                               loadFactor);
        this.loadFactor = loadFactor;
        this.threshold = tableSizeFor(initialCapacity);
    }
     public HashMap(int initialCapacity) {
        this(initialCapacity, DEFAULT_LOAD_FACTOR);
    }

The following method ensures that HashMap always uses powers of 2 for the hash table size.

/**
 * Returns a power of two size for the given target capacity.
 */
static final int tableSizeFor(int cap) {
    int n = cap - 1;
    n |= n >>> 1;
    n |= n >>> 2;
    n |= n >>> 4;
    n |= n >>> 8;
    n |= n >>> 16;
    return (n < 0) ? 1 : (n >= MAXIMUM_CAPACITY) ? MAXIMUM_CAPACITY : n + 1;
}

Differences Between HashMap and HashSet

If you have looked at the source code of HashSet, you should know that HashSet is implemented based on HashMap. (The source code of HashSet is very minimal because, apart from clone(), writeObject(), and readObject(), which HashSet must implement, all other methods directly call methods from HashMap.)

HashMap	HashSet
Implements Map interface	Implements Set interface
Stores key-value pairs	Stores only objects
Calls put() to add elements to the map	Calls add() method to add elements to the Set
`HashMap