I have two maps whose keys are Strings and whose values are Set<MyObject>. Given two Maps, what is the easiest way to merge them such that if two keys are identical, the value is a union of the two sets. You can assume values are never null and if it is useful, we can make these Maps SortedMaps.
Something like this (untested):
// Assume all maps are of the same generic type.
public static Map<String, Set<MyObject>> mergeAll(Map m1, Map m2) {
Map<String, Set<MyObject>> merged = new HashMap();
// Merge commom entries into the new map.
for (Map.Entry<String, Set<MyObject>> entry : m1.entrySet()) {
String key = entry.getKey();
Set<MyObject> s1 = new HashSet(entry.getValue());
Set<MyObject> s2 = m2.get(key);
if (s2 != null) s1.addAll(s2);
merged.put(key, s1);
}
// Add entries unique to m2 to the new map.
for (String key : m2.keys()) {
if (!s1.containsKey(key)) merged.put(key, new HashSet(m2.get(key)));
}
return merged;
}
Note that this solution does not mutate either of its arguments.