Reference: https://www.nurkiewicz.com/2014/04/hashmap-performance-improvements-in.html
Reference: https://dzone.com/articles/java-8-hashmaps-keys-and-the-comparable-interface
Reference: https://yermilov.github.io/blog/2017/02/24/tiebreaker-regarding-java-hashmap-treenode-and-tiebreakorder/

Basically when a bucket becomes too big (currently: TREEIFY_THRESHOLD = 8), HashMap dynamically replaces it with an ad-hoc implementation of tree map. This way rather than having pessimistic O(n) we get much better O(logn). How does it work? Well, previously entries with conflicting keys were simply appended to linked list, which later had to be traversed. Now HashMap promotes list into binary tree, using hash code as a branching variable. If two hashes are different but ended up in the same bucket, one is considered bigger and goes to the right. If hashes are equal (as in our case), HashMap hopes that the keys are Comparable, so that it can establish some order. This is not a requirement of HashMap keys, but apparently a good practice. If keys are not comparable, don't expect any performance improvements in case of heavy hash collisions.

The tree implementation inside the HashMap is a Red-Black tree, which means it will always be balanced.

When the HashMap implementation tries to find the location of a new entry in the tree, first it checks whether the current and the new values are easily comparable (Comparable interface) or not. In the latter case, it has to fall back to a comparison method called tieBreakOrder(Object a, Object b). This method tries to compare the two object based on class name first, and then using System.identityHashCode. However, when the key implements Comparable, the process is much simpler. The key itself defines how it compares to other keys, so the whole insertion/retrieval process speeds up, as there are no extra method calls needed for. It's worth mentioning that the same tieBreakOrder method is used when two Comparable keys turn out to be equal according to the compareTo method (the method returns 0).

In Map.Entry:

• public static <K extends Comparable<? super K>, V> Comparator<Map.Entry<K, V>> comparingByKey()
• public static <K, V extends Comparable<? super V>> Comparator<Map.Entry<K, V>> comparingByValue()
• public static <K, V> Comparator<Map.Entry<K, V>> comparingByKey(Comparator<? super K> cmp)
• public static <K, V> Comparator<Map.Entry<K, V>> comparingByValue(Comparator<? super V> cmp)

• default void forEach(BiConsumer<? super K, ? super V> action)
• default V getOrDefault(Object key, V defaultValue)

• default V putIfAbsent(K key, V value)- If the specified key is not already associated with a value (or is mapped to null) associates it with the given value and returns null, else returns the current value.

  Remark: map.putIfAbsent(1, null); is OK

• default boolean remove(Object key, Object value) - Removes the entry for the specified key only if it is currently mapped to the specified value.

• default void replaceAll(BiFunction<? super K, ? super V, ? extends V> function)

• default boolean replace(K key, V oldValue, V newValue)

• default V replace(K key, V value)

• default V computeIfAbsent(K key, Function<? super K, ? extends V> mappingFunction)

• default V computeIfPresent(K key, BiFunction<? super K, ? super V, ? extends V> remappingFunction)

• default V compute(K key, BiFunction<? super K, ? super V, ? extends V> remappingFunction)

• default V merge(K key, V value, BiFunction<? super V, ? super V, ? extends V> remappingFunction)

We provide tests for above mentioned methods.

1. comparing - MapComparingTest
   • sort entry set stream by keys

     stream.sorted(Map.Entry.comparingByKey()) 

   • sort entry set stream by keys in reverse order

     stream.sorted(Map.Entry.comparingByKey((x, y) -> Integer.compare(y, x))) 

   • sort entry set stream by values

     stream.sorted(Map.Entry.comparingByValue(Comparator.comparingInt(p -> p.getHobbies().size()))) 

   • sort entry set stream by values in reverse order

     .sorted(Map.Entry.comparingByValue(Comparator.<Person>comparingInt(p -> p.getHobbies().size()).reversed())) 

2. processing - MapProcessingTest
   • print all entries

     map.forEach((key, value) -> System.out.println(key + ": " + value)); 

   • get key (id = 1) from map or default to "NOT-FOUND"

     map.getOrDefault(1, "NOT-FOUND"); 

3. modifying
   • putIfAbsent - good way of initializing entries in map

     Map<String, Integer> counter = new HashMap<>(); counter.putIfAbsent("11-u", 0);