School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

Computer Science 1 Ah

CS1Ah Lecture Note 23 The Java Collection Framework

23.1 Introduction

Recent lectures have introduced a number of different kinds of container or collection classes, for example, the Vector, LinkedList and TreeSet classes. Each object in a collection class contains a nite set of other objects, usually referred to as its elements. Different kinds of collections have different properties: for example, elements might be maintained in order, or duplicate elements may be forbidden, and the efciency of methods varies. This note explores how collection classes in Java are arranged in a collection framework and what the benets are to doing this.

23.2

Interfaces

Collection classes are organised according to their interfaces. An interface can be thought of as the skeleton of a class: it species the types of the methods a class is expected to dene, but gives no information on how the methods are implemented, or what elds the class should dene. We say that a class implements an interface when it includes the methods specied by the interface. It may also include other methods. In general, a class may implement more than one interface. Java supports the description of interfaces. These interfaces can be organised in tree-shaped inheritance hierarchies, much as classes are. The formal denition of interfaces in Java is covered in CS1Bh. The interfaces in Javas collection framework and their inheritance relationships are shown in gure 23.1. Collection / \ List Set | SortedSet Figure 23.1: Interfaces of Java collection classes

School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

Computer Science 1 Ah

The interfaces are summarised below: Collection: Includes methods for size, adding, removing and checking membership of elements, intersection (retainAll()), union (addAll()), difference (removeAll()), copying (cloning), comparing for equality, creating iterators. Set: For unordered collections with no duplicates. Has same methods as Collection, but all methods must preserve the no duplicates property. SortedSet: Has extra methods to select smallest and largest elements, and elements within given ranges. List: For nite sequences. Duplicates are ne. Adds methods for adding, removing, getting and setting elements at positions in sequence specied by indexes. These interfaces are frequently used when designing software components that exchange collections. They are used as the argument types or return types of methods on the public boundaries of the components in place of collection implementation classes. Their use hides the choice of implementation within each component, and gives the implementors of each component the opportunity to change collection implementations without having to change the code at the boundaries between components.

23.3 Implementations
Here is a summary of the main collection implementations in Java. Methods are grouped according to their time complexity using big-O or order notation to indicate how their worst-case execution time varies with size n of collection. For example, O(log n) indicates that the worst-case execution time varies with the log (conventionally base 2) of the collection size. LinkedList: Implements List interface. O(1) get, set, add, remove at rst and last positions, and at positions given by iterators. O(n) add or remove at arbitrary numeric index or of given element, contains given element. ArrayList, Vector: Both implement List interface. O(1) get, set at positions given by index or iterator, Also add, remove at last position. O(log n) contains given element if sorted. Otherwise O(n). O(n) add, remove at arbitrary index or of given element. Vector is older and ArrayList is recommended for most cases. See Java doc for differences. arrays: Implements List interface when asList method of java.util.Arrays class used to provide List view. Complexities as with ArrayList, except that, since size xed, add and remove are not dened. 2

School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

Computer Science 1 Ah

TreeSet: Implements SortedSet interface. Elements in order. O(log n) guaranteed for add, remove, of given element, contains test, get, add, remove of greatest or least element. HashSet: Implements Set interface. Elements not in order. O(1) usually for add, remove of given element, contains test. Constant factors in time complexity can be signicant. Factors tunable.

The implementation relationship respects the inheritance of interfaces. For example, the HashSet class implements the Set interface which inherits from the Collection interface, so HashSet implements the Collection interface.

23.4

Algorithms

The java.util.Collections class provides several static methods that operate on collections. A few are summarised below. All work on any class with a List interface, except min and max which work on any class with a Collection interface. sort: Arrange elements in ascending order. Algorithm guaranteed to run in O(n log n) time. shufe: Does opposite of sort: reorder elements, based on input from a source of randomness. binarySearch: Find whether list contains a given element. Assumes list elements are in sorted order. Has O(log n) efciency only if list implementation supports O(1) access by position index. min/max: Find least or greatest element of the collection. Simple O(n) implementations. In addition, the Collections class provides several methods for changing the property of a collection object. For example, it can make a collection object read only, such that any attempt to modify the collection results in an exception being raised.

23.5

Iterators

Previous notes have introduced iterators as objects that support next and hasNext methods and that can be used to sequence through the elements of particular collections. Since an iterator generation method is included in the top-level Collection interface, every collection class must provide an iterator implementation. Iterators therefore are a truly generic way of sequencing through any collection. Every class implementing the List interface also provides richer ListIterators, which allow for both insertion and deletion of elements, and motion in both directions along lists. 3

School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh

Computer Science 1 Ah

23.6 Ordering Collection Elements

Several collection classes and algorithms need to know about how to order elements, for example, the TreeSet class, or the sort algorithm. The default way they do this is by calling a compareTo method of elements. Therefore the classes used for elements in these cases must dene this method. All the numeric classes in the Java library provide a compareTo method. Alternatively, these classes and algorithms permit the explicit provision of an ordering relation.

23.7 Maps
Closely related to collections are maps: sets of entries, each entry comprising a key and a value, with the restriction that no two distinct entries may have equal keys. Maps provide methods for adding new entries and looking up the entry for a given key. The Java collections framework denes Map and SortedMap interfaces, and TreeMap and HashMap implementation classes. The ClassOfStudents example from previous lectures has the avour of a map since entries could be looked up using surnames as keys.

23.8 Benets
When programming in any language, not just Java, there are strong benets to using a collection framework such as the one just described. The use of a framework: reduces programming effort: Less time is spent reinventing the wheel. provides standards for collection exchange: Interactions between software components frequently involve exchanges of various types of collections. Standards ensure predictable behaviour and eliminate need to write collection translation code. reduces learning time: since all collections have similar interfaces. speeds design of new implementations: because interfaces provide framework for design. eases experimentation with different implementations: when code using collection objects only assumes they implement given interfaces. In this course, we have given ad-hoc examples of collections for pedagogical reasons. But when programming for real, it is almost always best to use an existing collection framework. This doesnt restrict you to using the given implementations: you can always design your own implementations, just make sure they implement one the standard framework interfaces. For further information see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/collections/. For example look up descriptions of methods described informally in this note. Also many Java text-books have one or more chapters on collections.
Paul Jackson, 2002/11/28 09:57:53.