Java Collections Framework is one of the core APIs of java programming language. It’s one of the important topics for java interview questions. Here I am listing some important java collections interview questions and answers to help you in the interview. This is directly coming from my 14+ years of experience in Java programming.
List<Number> numbers = new ArrayList<Integer>();
?List<Integer>[] array = new ArrayList<Integer>[10];
Java 8 has brought major changes in the Collection API. Some of the changes are:
forEachRemaining(Consumer action)
method in Iterator
interface, Map replaceAll()
, compute()
, merge()
methods.Collections are used in every programming language and initial java release contained few classes for collections: Vector, Stack, Hashtable, Array. But looking at the larger scope and usage, Java 1.2 came up with Collections Framework that group all the collections interfaces, implementations and algorithms. Java Collections have come through a long way with the usage of Generics and Concurrent Collection classes for thread-safe operations. It also includes blocking interfaces and their implementations in java concurrent package. Some of the benefits of collections framework are;
Java 1.5 came with Generics and all collection interfaces and implementations use it heavily. Generics allow us to provide the type of Object that a collection can contain, so if you try to add any element of other type it throws compile time error. This avoids ClassCastException at Runtime because you will get the error at compilation. Also Generics make code clean since we don’t need to use casting and instanceof operator. I would highly recommend to go through Java Generic Tutorial to understand generics in a better way.
Collection is the root of the collection hierarchy. A collection represents a group of objects known as its elements. The Java platform doesn’t provide any direct implementations of this interface. Set is a collection that cannot contain duplicate elements. This interface models the mathematical set abstraction and is used to represent sets, such as the deck of cards. List is an ordered collection and can contain duplicate elements. You can access any element from its index. The list is more like an array with dynamic length. A Map is an object that maps keys to values. A map cannot contain duplicate keys: Each key can map to at most one value. Some other interfaces are Queue
, Dequeue
, Iterator
, SortedSet
, SortedMap
and ListIterator
.
Collection interface specifies group of Objects known as elements. How the elements are maintained is left up to the concrete implementations of Collection. For example, some Collection implementations like List allow duplicate elements whereas other implementations like Set don't. A lot of the Collection implementations have a public clone method. However, it doesn't make sense to include it in all implementations of Collection. This is because Collection is an abstract representation. What matters is the implementation. The semantics and the implications of either cloning or serializing come into play when dealing with the actual implementation; so concrete implementation should decide how it should be cloned or serialized, or even if it can be cloned or serialized. So mandating cloning and serialization in all implementations is less flexible and more restrictive. The specific implementation should decide as to whether it can be cloned or serialized.
Although Map interface and its implementations are part of the Collections Framework, Map is not collections and collections are not Map. Hence it doesn't make sense for Map to extend Collection or vice versa. If Map extends Collection interface, then where are the elements? The map contains key-value pairs and it provides methods to retrieve the list of Keys or values as Collection but it doesn't fit into the "group of elements" paradigm.
The Iterator interface provides methods to iterate over any Collection. We can get iterator instance from a Collection using _iterator()_ method. Iterator takes the place of Enumeration in the Java Collections Framework. Iterators allow the caller to remove elements from the underlying collection during the iteration. Java Collection iterator provides a generic way for traversal through the elements of a collection and implements **[Iterator Design Pattern](/community/tutorials/iterator-design-pattern-java "Iterator Design Pattern in Java – Example Tutorial")**.
Enumeration is twice as fast as Iterator and uses very little memory. Enumeration is very basic and fits basic needs. But the Iterator is much safer as compared to Enumeration because it always denies other threads to modify the collection object which is being iterated by it. Iterator takes the place of Enumeration in the Java Collections Framework. Iterators allow the caller to remove elements from the underlying collection that is not possible with Enumeration. Iterator method names have been improved to make its functionality clear.
The semantics are unclear, given that the contract for Iterator makes no guarantees about the order of iteration. Note, however, that ListIterator does provide an add operation, as it does guarantee the order of the iteration.
It can be implemented on top of current Iterator interface but since its use will be rare, it doesn't make sense to include it in the interface that everyone has to implement.
- We can use Iterator to traverse Set and List collections whereas ListIterator can be used with Lists only.
- Iterator can traverse in forward direction only whereas ListIterator can be used to traverse in both the directions.
- ListIterator inherits from Iterator interface and comes with extra functionalities like adding an element, replacing an element, getting index position for previous and next elements.
We can iterate over a list in two different ways - using iterator and using for-each loop.
```
List<String> strList = new ArrayList<>();
//using for-each loop
for(String obj : strList){
System.out.println(obj);
}
//using iterator
Iterator<String> it = strList.iterator();
while(it.hasNext()){
String obj = it.next();
System.out.println(obj);
}
```
Using iterator is more thread-safe because it makes sure that if underlying list elements are modified, it will throw `ConcurrentModificationException`.
Iterator fail-fast property checks for any modification in the structure of the underlying collection everytime we try to get the next element. If there are any modifications found, it throws `ConcurrentModificationException`. All the implementations of Iterator in Collection classes are fail-fast by design except the concurrent collection classes like ConcurrentHashMap and CopyOnWriteArrayList.
Iterator fail-safe property work with the clone of underlying collection, hence it's not affected by any modification in the collection. By design, all the collection classes in `java.util` package are fail-fast whereas collection classes in `java.util.concurrent` are fail-safe. Fail-fast iterators throw ConcurrentModificationException whereas fail-safe iterator never throws ConcurrentModificationException. Check this post for [CopyOnWriteArrayList Example](/community/tutorials/copyonwritearraylist-java).
We can use concurrent collection classes to avoid `ConcurrentModificationException` while iterating over a collection, for example CopyOnWriteArrayList instead of ArrayList. Check this post for [ConcurrentHashMap Example](/community/tutorials/concurrenthashmap-in-java).
Iterator interface declare methods for iterating a collection but its implementation is responsibility of the Collection implementation classes. Every collection class that returns an iterator for traversing has its own Iterator implementation nested class. This allows collection classes to chose whether iterator is fail-fast or fail-safe. For example ArrayList iterator is fail-fast whereas CopyOnWriteArrayList iterator is fail-safe.
`UnsupportedOperationException` is the exception used to indicate that the operation is not supported. It's used extensively in [JDK](/community/tutorials/difference-jdk-vs-jre-vs-jvm "Difference between JDK, JRE and JVM in Java") classes, in collections framework `java.util.Collections.UnmodifiableCollection` throws this exception for all `add` and `remove` operations.
HashMap stores key-value pair in `Map.Entry` static nested class implementation. HashMap works on hashing algorithm and uses hashCode() and equals() method in `put` and `get` methods. When we call `put` method by passing key-value pair, HashMap uses Key hashCode() with hashing to find out the index to store the key-value pair. The Entry is stored in the LinkedList, so if there is an already existing entry, it uses equals() method to check if the passed key already exists, if yes it overwrites the value else it creates a new entry and stores this key-value Entry. When we call `get` method by passing Key, again it uses the hashCode() to find the index in the array and then use equals() method to find the correct Entry and return its value. The below image will explain these detail clearly. [](https://journaldev.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/2013/01/java-hashmap-entry-impl.png) The other important things to know about HashMap are capacity, load factor, threshold resizing. HashMap initial default capacity is **16** and load factor is 0.75. The threshold is capacity multiplied by load factor and whenever we try to add an entry if map size is greater than the threshold, HashMap rehashes the contents of the map into a new array with a larger capacity. The capacity is always the power of 2, so if you know that you need to store a large number of key-value pairs, for example in caching data from the database, it's a good idea to initialize the HashMap with correct capacity and load factor.
HashMap uses the Key object hashCode() and equals() method to determine the index to put the key-value pair. These methods are also used when we try to get value from HashMap. If these methods are not implemented correctly, two different Key's might produce the same hashCode() and equals() output and in that case, rather than storing it at a different location, HashMap will consider the same and overwrite them. Similarly all the collection classes that doesn't store duplicate data use hashCode() and equals() to find duplicates, so it's very important to implement them correctly. The implementation of equals() and hashCode() should follow these rules.
- If `o1.equals(o2)`, then `o1.hashCode() == o2.hashCode()`should always be `true`.
- If `o1.hashCode() == o2.hashCode` is true, it doesn't mean that `o1.equals(o2)` will be `true`.
We can use any class as Map Key, however following points should be considered before using them.
- If the class overrides equals() method, it should also override hashCode() method.
- The class should follow the rules associated with equals() and hashCode() for all instances. Please refer earlier question for these rules.
- If a class field is not used in equals(), you should not use it in hashCode() method.
- Best practice for user defined key class is to make it immutable, so that hashCode() value can be cached for fast performance. Also immutable classes make sure that hashCode() and equals() will not change in future that will solve any issue with mutability. For example, let's say I have a class `MyKey` that I am using for the HashMap key.
```
//MyKey name argument passed is used for equals() and hashCode()
MyKey key = new MyKey("Pankaj"); //assume hashCode=1234
myHashMap.put(key, "Value");
// Below code will change the key hashCode() and equals()
// but its location is not changed.
key.setName("Amit"); //assume new hashCode=7890
//below will return null because HashMap will try to look for key
//in the same index as it was stored but since the key is mutated,
//there will be no match and it will return null.
myHashMap.get(new MyKey("Pankaj"));
```
This is the reason why String and Integer are mostly used as HashMap keys.
Map interface provides three collection views:
1. **Set<K> keySet()**: Returns a Set view of the keys contained in this map. The set is backed by the map, so changes to the map are reflected in the set, and vice-versa. If the map is modified while an iteration over the set is in progress (except through the iterator's remove operation), the results of the iteration are undefined. The set supports element removal, which removes the corresponding mapping from the map, via the Iterator remove, Set.remove, removeAll, retainAll, and clear operations. It does not support the add or addAll operations.
2. **Collection<V> values()**: Returns a Collection view of the values contained in this map. The collection is backed by the map, so changes to the map are reflected in the collection, and vice-versa. If the map is modified while an iteration over the collection is in progress (except through the iterator's remove operation), the results of the iteration are undefined. The collection supports element removal, which removes the corresponding mapping from the map, via the Iterator remove, Collection.remove, removeAll, retainAll, and clear operations. It does not support the add or addAll operations.
3. **Set<Map.Entry<K, V>> entrySet()**: Returns a Set view of the mappings contained in this map. The set is backed by the map, so changes to the map are reflected in the set, and vice-versa. If the map is modified while an iteration over the set is in progress (except through the iterator's remove operation, or the setValue operation on a map entry returned by the iterator) the results of the iteration are undefined. The set supports element removal, which removes the corresponding mapping from the map, via the Iterator remove, Set.remove, removeAll, retainAll, and clear operations. It does not support the add or addAll operations.
HashMap and Hashtable both implements Map interface and looks similar, however, there is the following difference between HashMap and Hashtable.
1. HashMap allows null key and values whereas Hashtable doesn't allow null key and values.
2. Hashtable is synchronized but HashMap is not synchronized. So HashMap is better for single threaded environment, Hashtable is suitable for multi-threaded environment.
3. `LinkedHashMap` was introduced in Java 1.4 as a subclass of HashMap, so incase you want iteration order, you can easily switch from HashMap to LinkedHashMap but that is not the case with Hashtable whose iteration order is unpredictable.
4. HashMap provides Set of keys to iterate and hence it's fail-fast but Hashtable provides Enumeration of keys that doesn't support this feature.
5. Hashtable is considered to be legacy class and if you are looking for modifications of Map while iterating, you should use ConcurrentHashMap.
For inserting, deleting, and locating elements in a Map, the HashMap offers the best alternative. If, however, you need to traverse the keys in a sorted order, then TreeMap is your better alternative. Depending upon the size of your collection, it may be faster to add elements to a HashMap, then convert the map to a TreeMap for sorted key traversal.
ArrayList and Vector are similar classes in many ways.
1. Both are index based and backed up by an array internally.
2. Both maintains the order of insertion and we can get the elements in the order of insertion.
3. The iterator implementations of ArrayList and Vector both are fail-fast by design.
4. ArrayList and Vector both allows null values and random access to element using index number.
These are the differences between ArrayList and Vector.
1. Vector is synchronized whereas ArrayList is not synchronized. However if you are looking for modification of list while iterating, you should use CopyOnWriteArrayList.
2. ArrayList is faster than Vector because it doesn't have any overhead because of synchronization.
3. ArrayList is more versatile because we can get synchronized list or read-only list from it easily using Collections utility class.
Arrays can contain primitive or Objects whereas ArrayList can contain only Objects. Arrays are fixed-size whereas ArrayList size is dynamic. Arrays don't provide a lot of features like ArrayList, such as addAll, removeAll, iterator, etc. Although ArrayList is the obvious choice when we work on the list, there are a few times when an array is good to use.
- If the size of list is fixed and mostly used to store and traverse them.
- For list of primitive data types, although Collections use autoboxing to reduce the coding effort but still it makes them slow when working on fixed size primitive data types.
- If you are working on fixed multi-dimensional situation, using \[\]\[\] is far more easier than List<List<>>
ArrayList and LinkedList both implement List interface but there are some differences between them.
1. ArrayList is an index based data structure backed by Array, so it provides random access to its elements with performance as O(1) but LinkedList stores data as list of nodes where every node is linked to its previous and next node. So even though there is a method to get the element using index, internally it traverse from start to reach at the index node and then return the element, so performance is O(n) that is slower than ArrayList.
2. Insertion, addition or removal of an element is faster in LinkedList compared to ArrayList because there is no concept of resizing array or updating index when element is added in middle.
3. LinkedList consumes more memory than ArrayList because every node in LinkedList stores reference of previous and next elements.
ArrayList, HashMap, TreeMap, Hashtable, and Vector classes provide random access to its elements. Download [java collections pdf](https://journaldev.nyc3.cdn.digitaloceanspaces.com/2013/01/java-collections-framework.pdf) for more information.
`java.util.EnumSet` is Set implementation to use with enum types. All of the elements in an enum set must come from a single enum type that is specified, explicitly or implicitly, when the set is created. EnumSet is not synchronized and null elements are not allowed. It also provides some useful methods like copyOf(Collection c), of(E first, E… rest) and complementOf(EnumSet s). Check this post for [java enum tutorial](/community/tutorials/java-enum).
Vector, Hashtable, Properties and Stack are synchronized classes, so they are thread-safe and can be used in multi-threaded environment. Java 1.5 Concurrent API included some collection classes that allows modification of collection while iteration because they work on the clone of the collection, so they are safe to use in multi-threaded environment.
Java 1.5 Concurrent package (`java.util.concurrent`) contains thread-safe collection classes that allow collections to be modified while iterating. By design Iterator implementation in `java.util` packages are fail-fast and throws ConcurrentModificationException. But Iterator implementation in `java.util.concurrent` packages are fail-safe and we can modify the collection while iterating. Some of these classes are `CopyOnWriteArrayList`, `ConcurrentHashMap`, `CopyOnWriteArraySet`.
Read these posts to learn about them in more detail.
- [Avoid ConcurrentModificationException](/community/tutorials/java-util-concurrentmodificationexception)
- [CopyOnWriteArrayList Example](/community/tutorials/copyonwritearraylist-java)
- [HashMap vs ConcurrentHashMap](/community/tutorials/concurrenthashmap-in-java)
`java.util.concurrent.BlockingQueue` is a Queue that supports operations that wait for the queue to become non-empty when retrieving and removing an element, and wait for space to become available in the queue when adding an element. BlockingQueue interface is part of the java collections framework and it’s primarily used for implementing the producer-consumer problem. We don’t need to worry about waiting for the space to be available for producer or object to be available for consumers in BlockingQueue as it’s handled by implementation classes of BlockingQueue. Java provides several BlockingQueue implementations such as ArrayBlockingQueue, LinkedBlockingQueue, PriorityBlockingQueue, SynchronousQueue, etc. Check this post for use of BlockingQueue for [producer-consumer problem](/community/tutorials/java-blockingqueue-example).
Both Queue and Stack are used to store data before processing them. `java.util.Queue` is an interface whose implementation classes are present in java concurrent package. Queue allows retrieval of element in First-In-First-Out (FIFO) order but it's not always the case. There is also Deque interface that allows elements to be retrieved from both end of the queue. The stack is similar to queue except that it allows elements to be retrieved in Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) order. Stack is a class that extends Vector whereas Queue is an interface.
`java.util.Collections` is a utility class consists exclusively of static methods that operate on or return collections. It contains polymorphic algorithms that operate on collections, “wrappers”, which return a new collection backed by a specified collection, and a few other odds and ends. This class contains methods for collection framework algorithms, such as binary search, sorting, shuffling, reverse, etc.
Java provides a Comparable interface which should be implemented by any custom class if we want to use Arrays or Collections sorting methods. The comparable interface has a compareTo(T obj) method which is used by sorting methods. We should override this method in such a way that it returns a negative integer, zero, or a positive integer if “this” object is less than, equal to, or greater than the object passed as an argument. But, in most real-life scenarios, we want sorting based on different parameters. For example, as a CEO, I would like to sort the employees based on Salary, an HR would like to sort them based on age. This is the situation where we need to use `Comparator` interface because `Comparable.compareTo(Object o)` method implementation can sort based on one field only and we can’t choose the field on which we want to sort the Object. Comparator interface `compare(Object o1, Object o2)` method need to be implemented that takes two Object argument, it should be implemented in such a way that it returns negative int if the first argument is less than the second one and returns zero if they are equal and positive int if the first argument is greater than the second one. Check this post for use of Comparable and Comparator interface to [sort objects](/community/tutorials/comparable-and-comparator-in-java-example).
Comparable and Comparator interfaces are used to sort collection or array of objects. Comparable interface is used to provide the natural sorting of objects and we can use it to provide sorting based on single logic. Comparator interface is used to provide different algorithms for sorting and we can choose the comparator we want to use to sort the given collection of objects.
If we need to sort an array of Objects, we can use `Arrays.sort()`. If we need to sort a list of objects, we can use `Collections.sort()`. Both these classes have overloaded sort() methods for natural sorting (using Comparable) or sorting based on criteria (using Comparator). Collections internally uses Arrays sorting method, so both of them have same performance except that Collections take sometime to convert list to array.
We can create a read-only collection using `Collections.unmodifiableCollection(Collection c)` method before passing it as argument, this will make sure that any operation to change the collection will throw `UnsupportedOperationException`.
We can use `Collections.synchronizedCollection(Collection c)` to get a synchronized (thread-safe) collection backed by the specified collection.
Java Collections Framework provides algorithm implementations that are commonly used such as sorting and searching. Collections class contain these method implementations. Most of these algorithms work on List but some of them are applicable for all kinds of collections. Some of them are sorting, searching, shuffling, min-max values.
The Big-O notation describes the performance of an algorithm in terms of the number of elements in a data structure. Since Collection classes are data structures, we usually tend to use Big-O notation to chose the collection implementation to use based on time, memory and performance. Example 1: ArrayList `get(index i)` is a constant-time operation and doesn't depend on the number of elements in the list. So its performance in Big-O notation is O(1). Example 2: A linear search on array or list performance is O(n) because we need to search through entire list of elements to find the element.
- Chosing the right type of collection based on the need, for example if size is fixed, we might want to use Array over ArrayList. If we have to iterate over the Map in order of insertion, we need to use LinkedHashMap. If we don't want duplicates, we should use Set.
- Some collection classes allows to specify the initial capacity, so if we have an estimate of number of elements we will store, we can use it to avoid rehashing or resizing.
- Write program in terms of interfaces not implementations, it allows us to change the implementation easily at later point of time.
- Always use Generics for type-safety and avoid ClassCastException at runtime.
- Use immutable classes provided by JDK as key in Map to avoid implementation of hashCode() and equals() for our custom class.
- Use Collections utility class as much as possible for algorithms or to get read-only, synchronized or empty collections rather than writing own implementation. It will enhance code-reuse with greater stability and low maintainability.
PriorityQueue is an unbounded queue based on a priority heap and the elements are ordered in their natural order or we can provide [Comparator](/community/tutorials/comparable-and-comparator-in-java-example) for ordering at the time of creation. PriorityQueue doesn't allow null values and we can't add any object that doesn't provide natural ordering or we don't have any comparator for them for ordering. Java PriorityQueue is not [thread-safe](/community/tutorials/thread-safety-in-java) and provided O(log(n)) time for enqueing and dequeing operations. Check this post for [java priority queue example](/community/tutorials/java-priority-queue-priorityqueue-example "Java Priority Queue (PriorityQueue) Example").
Generics doesn't support sub-typing because it will cause issues in achieving type safety. That's why List<T> is not considered as a subtype of List<S> where S is the super-type of T. To understanding why it's not allowed, let's see what could have happened if it has been supported.
```
List<Long> listLong = new ArrayList<Long>();
listLong.add(Long.valueOf(10));
List<Number> listNumbers = listLong; // compiler error
listNumbers.add(Double.valueOf(1.23));
```
As you can see from above code that IF generics would have been supporting sub-typing, we could have easily add a Double to the list of Long that would have caused `ClassCastException` at runtime while traversing the list of Long.
We are not allowed to create generic arrays because array carry type information of its elements at runtime. This information is used at runtime to throw `ArrayStoreException` if elements type doesn't match to the defined type. Since generics type information gets erased at compile time by Type Erasure, the array store check would have been passed where it should have failed. Let's understand this with a simple example code.
```
List<Integer>[] intList = new List<Integer>[5]; // compile error
Object[] objArray = intList;
List<Double> doubleList = new ArrayList<Double>();
doubleList.add(Double.valueOf(1.23));
objArray[0] = doubleList; // this should fail but it would pass because at runtime intList and doubleList both are just List
```
Arrays are covariant by nature i.e S\[\] is a subtype of T\[\] whenever S is a subtype of T but generics doesn't support covariance or sub-typing as we saw in the last question. So if we would have been allowed to create generic arrays, because of type erasure we would not get an array store exception even though both types are not related. To know more about Generics, read **[Java Generics Tutorial](/community/tutorials/java-generics-example-method-class-interface)**.
I will keep on adding more questions on java collections framework as and when I found them, if you found it useful please share it with others too, it motivates me in writing more like these. :) Please let me know if I have missed any important question, I will include that to list.
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Very good collection of Collections interview questions. …
- GNS
Its a very good collection of Collection IQ. Keep the work going and Thank you very much for sharing
- Sushil
Awesome collection
- Ambuj Tailang
a good collection of Java
- Adinath Bhawani
Good Question Collect From Util Package
- I M Futane
After looking at a number of the blog posts on your blog, I seriously appreciate your way of blogging. I book marked it to my bookmark site list and will be checking back soon. Take a look at my web site as well and tell me your opinion.
- Genia
itz realy so good
- Anupam
Very Nice …
- abc
Thanks a lot for this blog!! I bookmarked it…Thanks a lot buddy!!
- Praveen Kumar
great work pankaj… this helped me a lot
- praveen
Thanks a lot!!! This covers everything what an individual expects :) Really helpful… keep up the good work…
- Rameshwar Singh
Good one
- Brijs
good work very useful
- shashi
Good one
- Brijs Modi_1
nice collection of quesction thank for sharing.
- Tarun
Very well written and covering almost all the interviews related questions…great job indeed!!!
- Rahul Sharma
Excellent post… Really learnt lot of things in collections with full clarity… thanks alot…
- Leo
Hi, This is regarding question 17, there you mention “if map size is greater thn threshold , hashmap rehashes the content s of hashmap into new ‘ARRAY’ with larger capacity” Don’t we use linkedlist for for storing hasmap, I am beginner. Can you please explain ? Regards Vivek
- vivek
Here I am referring to the array that keeps indexes to the linked list, check the image in question 17 for better understanding.
- Pankaj
This is really one of the best !!. Thanks a lot. Please keep sharing more.
- Amit
Good collection of questions from Collections. Fantastic and very helpful.
- Manish Dass
what
- hmm
Respected Sir, Really i proud of you. you were posted many questions always i am welcome. but company never discuss to candidate in first time they give some programs for interview time and write the output. i am expecting these kind of sample question with answer. thank you sir. if you find any mistake my words please forgive me sir. that is my suggestion thats all
- G.Palanikumar
It depends on the interview type, if its telephonic round then expect more questions on core java related technologies. For programming questions, until unless you have deep knowledge of core technologies, you won’t be able to answer them with confidence and answer the followup questions.
- Pankaj
Thanks.It was really nice. Keep such good work up!
- Yogesh
Really helpful. keep it up :)
- Sandeep
Does the JDBC-ODBC Bridge support multiple concurrent open statements per connection? if No, How?
- Naresh
Wow, beautyfull artical in simple language…Thanks.
- Abhishek Singh
Hi, Kindly help to remove extra characters from the code like “”".
- Rameshwar Singh
It is collection framework not collections framework…
- siri
Collections is a class it will be helpful to collection framework by providing methods.
- siri
good work Pankaj. its a wonderful collection…
- Arun
Good Knowledge sharing and valuable informations not only from interview aspective but also to grow technically strong. You are doing a fantastic job, Pls continue.
- Ganesh
Thanks a lot for this blog. I bookmarked it :-) Thanks a lot buddy!!
- Snehal Masne
wow gr8 that u bukmrkd it…
- test
Thanks a TON :)
- krishna
Thanks.It was really nice. Keep such good work up!
- Yogesh
Really helpful. keep it up :)
- Sandeep
Does the JDBC-ODBC Bridge support multiple concurrent open statements per connection? if No, How?
- Naresh
Wow, beautyfull artical in simple language…Thanks.
- Abhishek Singh
Hi, Kindly help to remove extra characters from the code like “”".
- Rameshwar Singh
It is collection framework not collections framework…
- siri
Collections is a class it will be helpful to collection framework by providing methods.
- siri
good work Pankaj. its a wonderful collection…
- Arun
Good Knowledge sharing and valuable informations not only from interview aspective but also to grow technically strong. You are doing a fantastic job, Pls continue.
- Ganesh
Thanks a lot for this blog. I bookmarked it :-) Thanks a lot buddy!!
- Snehal Masne
wow gr8 that u bukmrkd it…
- test
Thanks a TON :)
- krishna
Hi Pankaj, Thanks for given a good kind of materiel. very useful to us. I request you, please provide JSF, EJB and JPA.
- Malli
Hi Pankaj , I was looking for some good interview question and found this . Its really very helpful and descriptive. You deserve praise for it . Excellent work Sir and keep it up !
- sam
Hi Pankaj, In question no 19, below line will always return null. myHashMap.get(new MyKey(‘Pankaj’)); since its creating new key everytime and there is no value available for this key. Please update it,if i’m correct and one more please replace all the strings enclosed with double quotes. Thanks, Akhil
- Akhil
Not that is not true. As stated HashMap uses equals() and hashcode() functions to find the value in the map. So if MyKey override these methods and provide correct implementation, then the hashcode will be same as any other value stored with same hashcode and we will get it. The code given in the question is to prove that immutability is required to avoid any data integrity issues in the Map, because if we change the data hashcode is changed and we will never be able to get the associated value. And thanks for pointing out the quotation marks, I will change it.
- Pankaj
Hi Pankaj, Thanks for such a nice detail on collections.
- Rajan
Good one !!! Keep it up , your explanation is good and practical .
- Harsha
Hello Pankaj, Can you please explain the the question no 43 “Why can’t we create generic array” in more detail and in easy way. It’s very difficult to understand it. Please help me out. Thanks, Divya :)
- Divya
Let’s get through each line in the sample code and try to understand what is happening. 1. List<Integer>[] intList = new List<Integer>[5]; This line will throw compile time exception now because we can’t have generic array. Just for the sake of argument, let’s assume that it’s allowed and compiler don’t throw any error. Since generics type information gets erased at runtime by Type Erasure, it will be like an array of List at runtime like List[] intList = new List[5]; 2. Object[] objArray = intList; Perfectly valid statement, creating an object array. 3. List<Double> doubleList = new ArrayList<Double>(); At runtime List doubleList = new ArrayList(); 4. doubleList.add(Double.valueOf(1.23)); Valid statement, adding Double to the list. 5. objArray[0] = doubleList; You see the problem here, since the objArray is referring to intList, we are basically setting doubleList to one of the elements of the array that is supposed to contain only Integer List. And it will work fine because for Array both intList and doubleList are just list, since there is no type information available. That’s why Generic Arrays are not supported in Java.
- Pankaj
Hi Pankaj, Its a great article just one thing that i question 40 you mention If we have to iterate over the Map in order of insertion, we need to use TreeMap it shouldn’t be linkedhashmap instead of treemap. Thanks
- Shelly
We can use both TreeMap or LinkedHashMap.
- Pankaj
Hi Pankaj, Insertion order is maintained only in LinkedHashMap whereas TreeMap maintains key based SortedOrder, Please correct me if I am wrong.
- Brijeshwar
It should be LinkedHashMap not TreeMap, TreeMap with natural order
- Vu Le
It’s amazing tutorial…thank u very much…
- Narayanarao Menda
Amazing work, thanks a lot.
- vidhya
Hello, Pankaj. Awesome Explanation.
- jameer
Excellent Work…!!
- nikhil sethiya
great work sir…!!
- nikhil sethiya
Thank you very much. I deeply appreciate your efforts.
- Sushil
Great work. Thanks alot Pankaj…!!
- Sateesh Kumar U
Great site! One question about no. 40: “If we have to iterate over the Map in order of insertion, we need to use TreeMap.” Shouldn’t it be: “If we have to iterate over the Map in order of insertion, we need to use LinkedHashMap.” or “If we have to iterate over the Map in natural order, we need to use TreeMap.” Thanks.
- jkbkrk
Good collection of collections interview questions with nice explanation
- Maruthi
Hi Pankaj, You have not added answers to all questions listed above ? Please provide answers also if possible. Your answers are easy to understand and very clear. Thanks in advance.
- Abhay
Please ignore:)
- Abhay
Thanks Pankaj…Excellent post. Please also add answers for questions from 22 onwards.
- chandan
I am not able to view all the questions though i am following you on twitter. I was able to view all the 40 questions for some days but not now. Please check.
- Arti
awesome posts by you pankaj…thanks a lot.
- sudheer
gud collection of questions
- pk
good collection of question…thanx
- vinita
wow! Really very nice articles
- Amit
Very good Collections interview questions!
- Karl
Very good collection of Collections interview questions.
- Karl
Hi, really nice tutorial. Just a correction: the default capacity of HashMap is 16. reference: https://grepcode.com/file/repository.grepcode.com/java/root/jdk/openjdk/6-b14/java/util/HashMap.java#HashMap.<init>()
- Aditya Peshave
each and every question is very nicely explained, good job!
- Danny
Very good collection of Collection questions :)
- Dharmendra
HI Pankaj, I great to see this site, It is very useful for Interviews, But here I found only 21 questions and answers,Can u post all the answers? Thanks a lot
- Jagadeesh
What is ThreadLocal? Pleas explain with some realtime example?
- Prakash
Q: 30-- " By design iterator is fail fast and throws ConcurrentModificationException" Is this statement conflicts with explanation in Q:14 !!!
- sampath kumar madala
Don’t get confused, both are right explanation. Iterator is just an interface and their corresponding implementation are either fail-fast or fail-safe. All the iterator implementation in java.util package collection classes are fail-fast whereas collection classes in java.util.concurrent implement fail-safe iteraator.
- Pankaj
It will be very helpful to have an image of the main collections (collection, set, list, Queue and map) sometimes is easier to watch the image as a tree than reading the description. Thank you.
- Pabel Lopez
Great Job sir… Thank u
- kiran
Correction: “If we have to iterate over the Map in order of insertion, we need to use TreeMap”. Its LinkedHashMap.
- Anoop
If we have to iterate over the Map in order of insertion, we need to use LinkedHashMap. With TreeMap if you need to iterate by sorted order
- Vu Le
Questions 14 and 30 contradict each other wrt ConcurrentHashMap.
- dakshina gandikota
No it was not contradicting, however answer in Q30 was confusing. I have modified it and it should be clear now.
- Pankaj
Thanks. Why not Vector for random access of its contents, along side ArrayList, HashMap, TreeMap and Hashtable?
- dakshina gandikota
In Question#20 Line 12: myHashMap.get(new MyKey(“Pankaj”)); If Line 12: were to be myHashMap.get(key); would the “theory” that mutable class as key is a bad idea hold? By the way, the definition of mutable is up in the air. Is it a final class with final methods and fields?
- dakshina gandikota
Please use the language short and precise. I read a question “Why Collection doesn’t extend Cloneable and Serializable interfaces?” it took me 5 minutes to understand what exactly are you trying to say.
- Sharmi
Really Nice work, As experienced person I don’t have these much knowledge. Again Thanks a lot.
- Vinod Karathiya
please tell about equals and hashcode method deeply
- Eswaran
Fine list of questions & answers…
- Vishy
very good Collections of questions and answers … thanx.
- Paresh Bhavsar
Could you please explain Que 29. and if Collection Classes are thread safe then please explain how??
- Vishwadeep Aggarwal
Can you please explain in concurrent collection why iterator does not throw concurrent modification exception.You have written that it works on the clone of that object. So please explain it deeply like where this clone is maintained and what operations are performed in the memory??
- RAHUL SAXENA
In concurrent collection like CopyOnWriteArrayList and CopyOnWriteArrayset, for every update operation a cloned copy of original object is created and the update operation is performed on that cloned copy rather than original copy. Later on this cloned copy and original copy object are synched by JVM internally to perform the update.Since the update is performed on cloned copy rather than original copy so we don’t get concurrentModifationException. Also if we have many write operations it is not recommended to use this concurrent class becoz for every update one cloned copy is created and performance degrades.
- Ankita
Dear Sir; Greetings!!! I have some doubt in Collection Frame Work- 1-Why we use interface why we did not use directly class. like list interface accept duplicacy and arraylist iimplement it then why we did not implement all the list feature in array list directly and what is advantage of list iterface
- Arun
The interface useful as you want to change the implementation classes. Maybe this time, you’re using ArrayList and in five years I assume that your business will be upgraded so you have to replace ArrayList by LinkedList. If you use the implementation classes in function arguments , you have to replace all of them but if you use the interface, you dont need to update. Let see example below: void getInfo(List b) -> you can pass any implementation classes void getInfo(ArrayList b) -> you can only pass ArrayList class.
- Quang
Grate efforts…keep it up.
- Ashish Mane
Excellent material…A big thanks for your efforts !!
- Viswa
Hello sir i cant see questions answers after the 21 no questions
- Bhaumik
Please do a program by adding scanning without using add method.
- vivek
Great work, Pankaj
- Pratap Shinde
Very Nice collection Interview questions. Thanks Pankaj.
- Bharath
@Pankaj how are writing this much long tutorial. You didn’t get married ?? :) But any how i love your work and effort its very useful. thanks
- Raju
This is funny and nice. Actually I am married and my wife provide a lot of support in this and help me motivated.
- Pankaj
Hi Pankaj , Can you please revisit the answer to the question 22. I guess in HashMap only null keys are supported and not null values…
- Inder
For these, best way to confirm is write a simple program. See below program compiles and runs fine.
- Pankaj
HashMap will allow only one null but n number of null values.
- Kannan
Amazing work, very detailed. Thank you so much.
- ramana reddy
Thank you so much for providing the explanations.
- Shreya
Good work, very clear explanation.
- Dhananjay
Good collection bro…thank you:)
- GOPINATH M B
hi Pankaj , Can you give more explanation on Q44. As it says that Arrays doesn’t allow to be generic. so what happen in case of Q44. Will it give error or simply store the list of elements of integer and double?
- vedant maheshwari
It will give compile error, the code is just to show what will happen if we assume that code will not give compile error.
- Pankaj
HI, Great work done for collating all questions at one place. For 36. The object needs to Implement Comparable or Comparator first and should have the implementation for compareTo() or compare(). Then we can use Colletions.sort(). Regards, Gautam
- Dabbiru Gautam
When you use collection to hold any wrapper class objects, then there is no need of implementing Comparable or Comparator interface. Ex: List list = new ArrayList(); Collections.sort(list); //will sort based on lexicographical. When you use any custom objects (says Person, Employee), then you have implement any of interface and tell based which fields collections has to be sorted. Say ArrayList holds list of Employee object, and you want to sort by employee salary or name then you have to go with any above interface. Ex. List empList = new ArrayList(); Collections.sort(empList); //compile time error if you don’t implement Comparable or Comparator interface
- Kannan
Yes true
- Vineet Kapoor
I was once asked in an interview. What is the meaning of making an array list ‘final’? Does it mean that we won’t be able to add elements to it? Till date whomever i’ve asked this question to , has not been able to answer it correctly. Please add more such type of tricky interview questions.
- Avisha Jindal
@avisha if you use final with any attribute or any other thing you can’t instantiate again eg . final int i =6; you not change value of i again same as final List list = new ArrayList (); you cant instantiate it again like list = new LinkedList(); or somthing but you add the vlaue inside the list .
- Tarun
This means that you cannot rebind the variable to point to a different collection instance: final List list = new ArrayList(); list = new ArrayList(); // Since `list’ is final, this won’t compile
- Vineet Kapoor
compile
- zurreyab
It simply means that you cant change or modify its reference. final List al = new ArrayList(); The al reference is pointing to the object Arraylist() cannot be modified
- Rupa
4 point is wrong. Map is not under the Collections interface.
- liverm0r
Yes True.
- Vineet Kapoor
The question is “What are the basic interfaces of Java Collections Framework”. It specifically says “Collections Framework”. Map is an interface in Collections framework, but is not a sub-interface of Collection interface.
- Vikas Palakurthi
this post is awesome for every one who wanted to crack the java interview. thank you so much.
- Anurag Singh
Really superb , looking for these kind of stuff in all Java frameworks as well. Thanks
- Veera Kanisetty
Question#44 : "Since generics type information gets erased at runtime " but according to https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/generics/erasure.html information erased at compile time. Is there any misunderstand from my side?
- Sanju
You are absolutely right, it was a typo error. I have fixed the post. Thanks for the comment, I appreciate it.
- Pankaj
Very good collection…
- Rajesh
Hi, I do follow your posts for various topics in Java. As I am not very old as a programmer , I was going through the fail-fast property of Iterator by writing small programs to just get accustomed with the exception it throws when any modification is done to the underlying Collection being iterated by it, For me the concept goes well with List but when I was implementing the fail-fast property of Iterator with Map, I was not getting any Exception even after modification to the Collection. I am attaching a snippet of the code below. Please do check and let me know why I wasn’t getting any Exception even after I add Entries in the Map. Map test = new HashMap(); test.put(1, “abc”); test.put(2, “cde”); test.put(3, “efg”); test.put(4, “ghi”); test.put(5, “ijk”); test.put(6, “klm”); Iterator iterator = test.keySet().iterator(); while(iterator.hasNext()) { if(it.next().equals(6)) { test.put(6, “yui”); test.put(7, “lll”); test.put(8, “kkk”); test.put(9, “sss”); } } for(Map.Entry m: test.entrySet()) { System.out.println(m.getKey() + " " + m.getValue()); } Do bare me with all the reference names been used in the program. It was only for test purpose
- Sanjay Roy
The problem is with your if condition, you are doing the modification on the last item. Change it to
if(it.next().equals(4))
and you will get the exception.- Pankaj
Thanks for the response. It does work but can you tell me if possible why the exception is not getting thrown if the condition is made on the last entry?. I am modifying something there also. Thanks in advance
- Sanjay Roy
Because it is the next() method that is throwing the ConcurrentModificationException and if it is not called then no exception. And this is what happening in your code.
- arvind
Hi Pankaj. Please expalin once again below line . Hashtable is synchronized but HashMap is not synchronized. So HashMap is better for single threaded environment, Hashtable is suitable for multi-threaded environment.
- Nand
HashMap is better for multi-threaded environment because it is not synchronized and multiple threads can access the hashmap at the same time,but it is not the same with hashtable.multiple threads cannot access the hashtable at the same time.
- csg
Can someone pls tell difference between for loop and iterator … even in Iterator we can not modify collection as it throws Concurrent ModificationException.
- Venus
If I remember correctly iterator is released in java 1.2 Advantage of iterator is that you can remove element during the iteration. Also you can you iterate backward. Hope this help you
- Tsetso
Iterator doesn’t move backward it is a One Directional Cursor Whereas ListIterator is a Bidirectional cursor. In Enumeration:- Read Only In Iterator:- Read/Remove In ListIterator:- Read/Remove/Add/replace.
- Raghib
In the “What are the basic interfaces of Java Collections Framework?” is missed Queue Collection Interface which is one of the four based Java Collection interfaces
- Tsetso
Please make correct question 12. For-each loop under the hood use iterator to go through elements of collection and It throw ConcurrentModificationException if something has changed. The explanation to this question sounds like “Iterator is better than Iterator”.
- Java
Very Nice Interview Questions…
- Vivek Kurmi
Thanks for such good Questions
- Vaibhav
Very good source of info. Great job indeed. Thanks Pankaj !!
- Meenakshi
Map.Entry static nested class implementation… It is nested interface or implementation class.
- vicky kumar jaiswal
Excellent work…Very useful material…Thanks
- Gaurav Sahu
Very helpful for interview and good collections. One thing i would like to mention for the difference between Comparable and Comparator is can’t we use comparable to sort using many fields? As per the documentation we can have multiple sorting sequence using comparator that’s not possible using Comparable. I meant to say we can have multiple classes for Comparator like SortUsingAge, SortUsingName, SortUsingAgeAndName. But using Comparable we can have only one class and we need to construct CompareTo method whithin the same Object which you want to sort but we have options in CompareTo method to sort using many fields. Please update If I am wrong because it’s nice tutorial and very helpful for interview and I am expecting this to be updated If I am correct.
- PREM SINHA
Hello Pankaj, There is a question in above list: Which collection classes provide random access of it’s elements? And vector is not there in answer, although Vector implements random access. Can you tell me does vector and stack support random access or not?
- Meenal Jain
Vector implements random access, Stack doesn’t.
- Pankaj
ArrayList also implement Random access Interface
- Madhav Kore
41 Chosing the right type of collection based on the need, for example if size is fixed, we might want to use Array over ArrayList. If we have to iterate over the Map in order of insertion, we need to use TreeMap. If we don’t want duplicates, we should use Set. Shouldn’t Treemap be replaced with LinkedHashMap ,How would you know the order of insertion in a TreeMap unless you are inserting a sorted entry ?
- Ashutosh Ghimire
Yes…agree with your comment…TreeMap maintains the natural ordering or ordered according to provided comparator !
- AS
Yes, you guys are right. I have corrected the error. I appreciate the comment.
- Pankaj
Why HashMap allows null key and values whereas Hashtable doesn’t allow null key and values ?
- saksham
Saksham, HashMap allows storing of one null key and multiple null values, whereas HashTable does not because, HashTable Keys implement the hashCode() and equals() method. If HashTable allows null keys then it will try to implement the hashCode() method. To Implement the hashCode() method, you need a key Object (either an Int or a String in most cases) which then returns the index for storage and retrieval. As null is not an object, its going to throw an Null Pointer Exception. Extra: HashMap allows one null key as all keys have to be unique. Hope this helps.
- Akash Gvalani
can you please explain, how to get insertion order preserved using HashSet.
- sravya
LinkedHashSet preserves the order
- Shashaank
Hello… Can you explain how the iterator.remove() method works internally. ? I understand that it will not throw an error if we remove an element from a list , set etc if we remove using the iterator.remove() , but how it is taken care internally. ?
- DD