Sorting problem using TreeMap

Question

I'm trying to put some key values in HashMap and then trying to sort out using TreeMap as below. Problem is that if there were similar values in map, then after sorting it is considering any one of them.

   import java.util.*;

public class HashmapExample {

            public static void main(String[] args) {

            HashMap<String,Integer> map = new HashMap<String,Integer>();
            ValueComparator bvc =  new ValueComparator(map);
            TreeMap<String,Integer> sorted_map = new TreeMap(bvc);

            map.put("A",99);
            map.put("B",67);
            map.put("C",123);
            map.put("G",67);
            map.put("F",67);
            map.put("H",67);
            map.put("D",6);

            System.out.println("unsorted map");
            for (String key : map.keySet()) {
                System.out.println("key/value: " + key + "/"+map.get(key));
            }

            sorted_map.putAll(map);

            System.out.println("results after sorting");
            for (String key : sorted_map.keySet()) {
                System.out.println("key/value: " + key + "/"+sorted_map.get(key));
            }
        }

    }

    class ValueComparator implements Comparator {

      Map base;
      public ValueComparator(Map base) {
          this.base = base;
      }

      public int compare(Object a,Object b) {

        if((Integer)base.get(a) > (Integer)base.get(b)) {
          return 1;
        } else if((Integer)base.get(a) == (Integer)base.get(b)) {
          return 0;
        } else {
          return -1;
        }
      }
    }

After this the output is like below

unsorted map
key/value: D/6
key/value: A/99
key/value: F/67
key/value: H/67
key/value: C/123
key/value: B/67
key/value: G/67
results after sorting
key/value: D/6
key/value: F/67
key/value: A/99
key/value: C/123

For B,G,F and H keys i gave value as 67. After sorting map, it is displaying only F value and eleminating B,G and H values. I want to display outputsomething like below

    key/value: D/6
    key/value: B/67
    key/value: G/67
    key/value: F/67
    key/value: H/67
    key/value: A/99
    key/value: C/123

Answer 1

The reason keys B,G and H are being eliminated is because the comparator you provided compares based only on the values. Since they all have the same values, they are all equal keys, which means one will overwrite the others.

To print out what you want, your comparator would need to first compare the values, and then if they are equal, compare the keys.

int compare(Comparable key1, Comparable key2) {
   // I'm guessing you are doing something like:
   // return map.get(key1).compareTo(map.get(key2));

    // you can change it to something like
    int result = key1.compareTo(key2);
    if ( result == 0 ) {
      result= key1.compareTo(key2) 
    }

    return result;

}