commons-collections/RELEASE-NOTES-2.0.html

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<title>RELEASE NOTES: COLLECTIONS 2.0</title>
<center><h2>RELEASE NOTES: COLLECTIONS 2.0</h2></center>
<center><h3>NEW COLLECTIONS AND COMPARATORS</h3></center>
<p><i>Collections 2.0</i> includes a significant number of new collections, in addition to several
useful Comparator classes. Descriptions of the new collections and comparators follow.
(For descriptions of all classes in <i>Collections</i>, see the <i>STATUS.html</i> file.)</p>
<p>These collections are new to <i>Collections 2.0</i>:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Bag</strong> - A Collection that counts the number of times an
object appears in the collection. Suppose
you have a Bag that contains <code>{a, a, b, c}</code>. Calling
getCount on <code>a</code> would return 2, while calling
uniqueSet would return <code>{a, b, c}</code>. <i>Note: this is an
interface with several implementations.</i></li>
<li><strong>DoubleOrderedMap</strong> - Red-Black tree-based implementation of Map.
This class guarantees
that the map will be in both ascending key order and ascending
value order, sorted according to the natural order for the key's
and value's classes.</li>
<li><strong>FilterListIterator</strong> - A proxy <code>ListIterator</code> which
takes a <code>Predicate</code> instance to filter
out objects from an underlying <code>ListIterator</code>
instance. Only objects for which the specified
<code>Predicate</code> evaluates to <code>true</code> are
returned by the iterator.</li>
<li><strong>HashBag</strong> - An implementation of <strong>Bag</strong> that is backed by a
HashMap.</li>
<li><strong>MultiMap</strong> - This is simply a Map with slightly different semantics.
Instead of returning an Object, it returns a Collection.
So for example, you can put( key, new Integer(1) );
and then a Object get( key ); will return you a Collection
instead of an Integer. This is an interface implemented
by <strong>MultiHashMap</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>ProxyMap</strong> - This <code>Map</code> wraps another <code>Map</code>
implementation, using the wrapped instance for its default
implementation. This class is used as a framework on which to
build to extensions for its wrapped <code>Map</code> object which
would be unavailable or inconvenient via sub-classing (but usable
via composition).</li>
<li><strong>SequencedHashMap</strong> - A map of objects whose mapping entries are
sequenced based on the order in
which they were added.</li>
<li><strong>SortedBag</strong> - A type of <strong>Bag</strong> that maintains order among its unique
representative members</li>
<li><strong>TreeBag</strong> - An implementation of <strong>Bag</strong> that is backed by a
TreeMap. Order will be maintained among the unique representative
members.</li>
</ul>
<p>These are the new Comparator classes:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>ComparableComparator</strong> - A Comparator that compares Comparable objects.
This Comparator is useful, for example,
for enforcing the natural order in custom implementations
of SortedSet and SortedMap.</li>
<li><strong>ComparatorChain</strong> - ComparatorChain is a Comparator that wraps one or
more Comparators in sequence. The ComparatorChain
calls each Comparator in sequence until either 1)
any single Comparator returns a non-zero result
(and that result is then returned),
or 2) the ComparatorChain is exhausted (and zero is
returned). This type of sorting is very similar
to multi-column sorting in SQL, and this class
allows Java classes to emulate that kind of behaviour
when sorting a List.</li>
<li><strong>ReverseComparator</strong> - Reverses the order of another comparator.</li>
</ul>
<center><h3>CHANGED COLLECTIONS</h3></center>
These classes have changed since <i>Collections 1.0</i>:
<p><u>ArrayEnumeration</u></p>
<p>ArrayEnumeration has been <b>deprecated</b>. This class has significant overlap with
ArrayIterator, and Collections focuses mainly on Java2-style
collections. If you need to enumerate an array,
create an ArrayIterator and wrap it with an
IteratorEnumeration instead.</p>
<p><u>ArrayIterator</u></p>
<p><i>Bugs fixed:</i></p>
<ul>
<li>ArrayIterator can now iterate over arrays of primatives</li>
</ul>
<p><u>LRUMap</u></p>
<p>LRUMap has been reimplemented as a subclass of
SynchronizedHashMap. The new implementation of
LRUMap should be faster, and it also offers true LRU
capabilities; now any get(Object) or
put(Object,Object) from this collection
promotes the key to the Most Recently Used position.</p>
<p><i>LRUMap 2.0 compatibility changes:</i></p>
<ul>
<li>LRUMap can no longer be cast to a HashMap.</li>
<li>The removeLRU() method now has a different
signature, and is no longer public. Instead, use
remove(getFirstKey()).</li>
<li>"Externalized" LRUMap 1.0 Objects cannot be
read by LRUMap 2.0.</li>
</ul>
<p><i>New features:</i></p>
<ul>
<li>True LRU algorithm.</li>
<li>New methods from SequencedHashMap superclass.</li>
<li>processRemovedLRU(Object key, Object value) method
allows subclasses to perform custom actions on
keys and values that are expunged from the Map.</li>
</ul>
<p><i>Bugs fixed:</i></p>
<ul>
<li>calling setMaximumSize(int) will remove excess LRUs
when the current size of the Map exceeds the new
maximum size</li>
</ul>
<p><u>BeanMap</u></p>
<p>BeanMap's entrySet() now properly returns a set containing Map.Entry
objects. Previously, entrySet() was equivalent to keySet() (returns a set of
the readable properties) and there was no mechanism to retrieve all of the
readable properties along with their values. Additionally, the BeanMap clone
method has been revamped to work better for subclasses. </p>
<p><i>BeanMap 2.0 compatibility changes:</i></p>
<ul>
<li>BeanMap's clone() method now declares it throws
CloneNotSupportedException. This allows subclasses of BeanMap to not require
being Cloneable and facilitates subclasses that wish to be cloneable (allows
the subclass to call super.clone() and have it return an instance of the
child rather than the parent).</li>
<li>If a BeanMap is not cloneable because a new instance of the underlying
bean cannot be constructed, a CloneNotSupportedException is thrown rather
than an UnsupportedOperationException or other RuntimeException.</li>
<li>BeanMap's entrySet() method now returns a set of Map.Entry objects rather
than the set of readable properties. To retrieve a set of readable
properties, use keySet() instead.</li>
</ul>
<p><i>Bugs fixed:</i></p>
<ul>
<li>If no bean is set in the BeanMap, or setBean(Object) was called with a
null argument, many BeanMap methods threw NullPointerExceptions. These have
been fixed to properly handle the case where there is no bean established in
the map.</li>
</ul>