Constraint Specific Key - convention for HashMap - Java
Simple question, yet I couldn't figure out the answer,
Is it possible to constraint key convention for my application's HashMap? As I don't want future developer who works on it and try to use different key, I want to enforce a rule regarding what type of key they have to use.
As an example :
There can be only 4 pair, And all four key can only be,
1. <North, Place>
2. <South, Place>
3. <East, Place>
4. <West, Place>
When developer use my methods they should get error if they use different key other than above mentioned.
Thank you for any kind of help
What I can do so far :
I might check by an if statement while adding key and 开发者_运维百科value into HashMap, lets say in setLocationList(String key, Place place);. But I want something smarter than this if it is available. Thanks.
Sure, use an enum for your directions, then use an EnumMap
for your map type.
public enum Direction {
NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, WEST;
}
Map<Direction, Place> map = new EnumMap<Direction, Place>(Direction.class);
This guarantees that the key must be of type Direction
. And it's watertight---because of the type key passed to the EnumMap
constructor, even if you're using generics-blind code, the type restriction will still get enforced (at runtime).
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