Baeldung Pro – NPI EA (cat = Baeldung)
announcement - icon

Baeldung Pro comes with both absolutely No-Ads as well as finally with Dark Mode, for a clean learning experience:

>> Explore a clean Baeldung

Once the early-adopter seats are all used, the price will go up and stay at $33/year.

Partner – Microsoft – NPI EA (cat = Baeldung)
announcement - icon

Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

To learn more about Java features on Azure Container Apps, visit the documentation page.

You can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

Partner – Microsoft – NPI EA (cat= Spring Boot)
announcement - icon

Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

To learn more about Java features on Azure Container Apps, you can get started over on the documentation page.

And, you can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

Partner – Orkes – NPI EA (cat=Spring)
announcement - icon

Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.

With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.

Partner – Orkes – NPI EA (tag=Microservices)
announcement - icon

Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.

With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.

eBook – Guide Spring Cloud – NPI EA (cat=Spring Cloud)
announcement - icon

Let's get started with a Microservice Architecture with Spring Cloud:

>> Join Pro and download the eBook

eBook – Mockito – NPI EA (tag = Mockito)
announcement - icon

Mocking is an essential part of unit testing, and the Mockito library makes it easy to write clean and intuitive unit tests for your Java code.

Get started with mocking and improve your application tests using our Mockito guide:

Download the eBook

eBook – Java Concurrency – NPI EA (cat=Java Concurrency)
announcement - icon

Handling concurrency in an application can be a tricky process with many potential pitfalls. A solid grasp of the fundamentals will go a long way to help minimize these issues.

Get started with understanding multi-threaded applications with our Java Concurrency guide:

>> Download the eBook

eBook – Reactive – NPI EA (cat=Reactive)
announcement - icon

Spring 5 added support for reactive programming with the Spring WebFlux module, which has been improved upon ever since. Get started with the Reactor project basics and reactive programming in Spring Boot:

>> Join Pro and download the eBook

eBook – Java Streams – NPI EA (cat=Java Streams)
announcement - icon

Since its introduction in Java 8, the Stream API has become a staple of Java development. The basic operations like iterating, filtering, mapping sequences of elements are deceptively simple to use.

But these can also be overused and fall into some common pitfalls.

To get a better understanding on how Streams work and how to combine them with other language features, check out our guide to Java Streams:

>> Join Pro and download the eBook

eBook – Jackson – NPI EA (cat=Jackson)
announcement - icon

Do JSON right with Jackson

Download the E-book

eBook – HTTP Client – NPI EA (cat=Http Client-Side)
announcement - icon

Get the most out of the Apache HTTP Client

Download the E-book

eBook – Maven – NPI EA (cat = Maven)
announcement - icon

Get Started with Apache Maven:

Download the E-book

eBook – Persistence – NPI EA (cat=Persistence)
announcement - icon

Working on getting your persistence layer right with Spring?

Explore the eBook

eBook – RwS – NPI EA (cat=Spring MVC)
announcement - icon

Building a REST API with Spring?

Download the E-book

Course – LS – NPI EA (cat=Jackson)
announcement - icon

Get started with Spring and Spring Boot, through the Learn Spring course:

>> LEARN SPRING
Course – RWSB – NPI EA (cat=REST)
announcement - icon

Explore Spring Boot 3 and Spring 6 in-depth through building a full REST API with the framework:

>> The New “REST With Spring Boot”

Course – LSS – NPI EA (cat=Spring Security)
announcement - icon

Yes, Spring Security can be complex, from the more advanced functionality within the Core to the deep OAuth support in the framework.

I built the security material as two full courses - Core and OAuth, to get practical with these more complex scenarios. We explore when and how to use each feature and code through it on the backing project.

You can explore the course here:

>> Learn Spring Security

Course – All Access – NPI EA (cat= Spring)
announcement - icon

All Access is finally out, with all of my Spring courses. Learn JUnit is out as well, and Learn Maven is coming fast. And, of course, quite a bit more affordable. Finally.

>> GET THE COURSE
Course – LSD – NPI EA (tag=Spring Data JPA)
announcement - icon

Spring Data JPA is a great way to handle the complexity of JPA with the powerful simplicity of Spring Boot.

Get started with Spring Data JPA through the guided reference course:

>> CHECK OUT THE COURSE

Partner – LambdaTest – NPI EA (cat=Testing)
announcement - icon

End-to-end testing is a very useful method to make sure that your application works as intended. This highlights issues in the overall functionality of the software, that the unit and integration test stages may miss.

Playwright is an easy-to-use, but powerful tool that automates end-to-end testing, and supports all modern browsers and platforms.

When coupled with LambdaTest (an AI-powered cloud-based test execution platform) it can be further scaled to run the Playwright scripts in parallel across 3000+ browser and device combinations:

>> Automated End-to-End Testing With Playwright

Course – Spring Sale 2025 – NPI EA (cat= Baeldung)
announcement - icon

Yes, we're now running our Spring Sale. All Courses are 25% off until 26th May, 2025:

>> EXPLORE ACCESS NOW

Course – Spring Sale 2025 – NPI (cat=Baeldung)
announcement - icon

Yes, we're now running our Spring Sale. All Courses are 25% off until 26th May, 2025:

>> EXPLORE ACCESS NOW

1. Overview

In this tutorial, we’re going to explore the available options for handling a Map with duplicate keys or, in other words, a Map that allows storing multiple values for a single key.

2. Standard Maps

Java has several implementations of the interface Map, each one with its own particularities.

However, none of the existing Java core Map implementations allow a Map to handle multiple values for a single key.

As we can see, if we try to insert two values for the same key, the second value will be stored, while the first one will be dropped.

It will also be returned (by every proper implementation of the put(K key, V value) method):

Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<>();
assertThat(map.put("key1", "value1")).isEqualTo(null);
assertThat(map.put("key1", "value2")).isEqualTo("value1");
assertThat(map.get("key1")).isEqualTo("value2");

How can we achieve the desired behavior, then?

3. Collection as Value

Obviously, using a Collection for every value of our Map would do the job:

Map<String, List<String>> map = new HashMap<>();
List<String> list = new ArrayList<>();
map.put("key1", list);
map.get("key1").add("value1");
map.get("key1").add("value2");
 
assertThat(map.get("key1").get(0)).isEqualTo("value1");
assertThat(map.get("key1").get(1)).isEqualTo("value2");

However, this verbose solution has multiple drawbacks and is prone to errors. It implies that we need to instantiate a Collection for every value, check for its presence before adding or removing a value, delete it manually when no values are left, etc.

From Java 8, we could exploit the compute() methods and improve it:

Map<String, List<String>> map = new HashMap<>();
map.computeIfAbsent("key1", k -> new ArrayList<>()).add("value1");
map.computeIfAbsent("key1", k -> new ArrayList<>()).add("value2");

assertThat(map.get("key1").get(0)).isEqualTo("value1");
assertThat(map.get("key1").get(1)).isEqualTo("value2");

However, we should avoid it unless having a very good reason not to, such as restrictive company policies preventing us from using third-party libraries.

Otherwise, before writing our own custom Map implementation and reinventing the wheel, we should choose among the several options available out-of-the-box.

4. Apache Commons Collections

As usual, Apache has a solution for our problem.

Let’s start by importing the latest release of Common Collections (CC from now on):

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
  <artifactId>commons-collections4</artifactId>
  <version>4.5.0-M2</version>
</dependency>

4.1. MultiMap

The org.apache.commons.collections4.MultiMap interface defines a Map that holds a collection of values against each key.

It’s implemented by the org.apache.commons.collections4.map.MultiValueMap class, which automatically handles most of the boilerplate under the hood:

MultiMap<String, String> map = new MultiValueMap<>();
map.put("key1", "value1");
map.put("key1", "value2");
assertThat((Collection<String>) map.get("key1"))
  .contains("value1", "value2");

While this class is available since CC 3.2, it’s not thread-safe, and it’s been deprecated in CC 4.1. We should use it only when we can’t upgrade to the newer version.

4.2. MultiValuedMap

The successor of MultiMap is the org.apache.commons.collections4.MultiValuedMap interface. It has multiple implementations ready to be used.

Let’s see how to store our multiple values into an ArrayList, which retains duplicates:

MultiValuedMap<String, String> map = new ArrayListValuedHashMap<>();
map.put("key1", "value1");
map.put("key1", "value2");
map.put("key1", "value2");
assertThat((Collection<String>) map.get("key1"))
  .containsExactly("value1", "value2", "value2");

Alternatively, we could use a HashSet, which drops duplicates:

MultiValuedMap<String, String> map = new HashSetValuedHashMap<>();
map.put("key1", "value1");
map.put("key1", "value1");
assertThat((Collection<String>) map.get("key1"))
  .containsExactly("value1");

Both of the above implementations are not thread-safe.

Let’s see how we can use the UnmodifiableMultiValuedMap decorator to make them immutable:

@Test(expected = UnsupportedOperationException.class)
public void givenUnmodifiableMultiValuedMap_whenInserting_thenThrowingException() {
    MultiValuedMap<String, String> map = new ArrayListValuedHashMap<>();
    map.put("key1", "value1");
    map.put("key1", "value2");
    MultiValuedMap<String, String> immutableMap =
      MultiMapUtils.unmodifiableMultiValuedMap(map);
    immutableMap.put("key1", "value3");
}

5. Guava Multimap

Guava is the Google Core Libraries for Java API.

Let’s start by importing Guava on our project:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.google.guava</groupId>
  <artifactId>guava</artifactId>
  <version>31.0.1-jre</version>
</dependency>

Guava followed the path of multiple implementations since the beginning.

The most common one is the com.google.common.collect.ArrayListMultimap, which uses a HashMap backed by an ArrayList for every value:

Multimap<String, String> map = ArrayListMultimap.create();
map.put("key1", "value2");
map.put("key1", "value1");
assertThat((Collection<String>) map.get("key1"))
  .containsExactly("value2", "value1");

As always, we should prefer the immutable implementations of the Multimap interface: com.google.common.collect.ImmutableListMultimap and com.google.common.collect.ImmutableSetMultimap.

5.1. Common Map Implementations

When we need a specific Map implementation, the first thing to do is check if it exists because Guava has probably already implemented it.

For example, we can use the com.google.common.collect.LinkedHashMultimap, which preserves the insertion order of keys and values:

Multimap<String, String> map = LinkedHashMultimap.create();
map.put("key1", "value3");
map.put("key1", "value1");
map.put("key1", "value2");
assertThat((Collection<String>) map.get("key1"))
  .containsExactly("value3", "value1", "value2");

Alternatively, we can use a com.google.common.collect.TreeMultimap, which iterates keys and values in their natural order:

Multimap<String, String> map = TreeMultimap.create();
map.put("key1", "value3");
map.put("key1", "value1");
map.put("key1", "value2");
assertThat((Collection<String>) map.get("key1"))
  .containsExactly("value1", "value2", "value3");

5.2. Forging Our Custom MultiMap

Many other implementations are available.

However, we may want to decorate a Map and/or a List that’s not yet implemented.

Luckily, Guava has a factory method allowing us to do it — the Multimap.newMultimap().

6. Conclusion

We’ve seen how to store multiple values for a key in a Map in all the main existing ways.

We’ve explored the most popular implementations of Apache Commons Collections and Guava, which should be preferred to custom solutions when possible.

The code backing this article is available on GitHub. Once you're logged in as a Baeldung Pro Member, start learning and coding on the project.
Baeldung Pro – NPI EA (cat = Baeldung)
announcement - icon

Baeldung Pro comes with both absolutely No-Ads as well as finally with Dark Mode, for a clean learning experience:

>> Explore a clean Baeldung

Once the early-adopter seats are all used, the price will go up and stay at $33/year.

Partner – Microsoft – NPI EA (cat = Spring Boot)
announcement - icon

Azure Container Apps is a fully managed serverless container service that enables you to build and deploy modern, cloud-native Java applications and microservices at scale. It offers a simplified developer experience while providing the flexibility and portability of containers.

Of course, Azure Container Apps has really solid support for our ecosystem, from a number of build options, managed Java components, native metrics, dynamic logger, and quite a bit more.

To learn more about Java features on Azure Container Apps, visit the documentation page.

You can also ask questions and leave feedback on the Azure Container Apps GitHub page.

Partner – Orkes – NPI EA (cat = Spring)
announcement - icon

Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.

With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.

Partner – Orkes – NPI EA (tag = Microservices)
announcement - icon

Modern software architecture is often broken. Slow delivery leads to missed opportunities, innovation is stalled due to architectural complexities, and engineering resources are exceedingly expensive.

Orkes is the leading workflow orchestration platform built to enable teams to transform the way they develop, connect, and deploy applications, microservices, AI agents, and more.

With Orkes Conductor managed through Orkes Cloud, developers can focus on building mission critical applications without worrying about infrastructure maintenance to meet goals and, simply put, taking new products live faster and reducing total cost of ownership.

Try a 14-Day Free Trial of Orkes Conductor today.

eBook – HTTP Client – NPI EA (cat=HTTP Client-Side)
announcement - icon

The Apache HTTP Client is a very robust library, suitable for both simple and advanced use cases when testing HTTP endpoints. Check out our guide covering basic request and response handling, as well as security, cookies, timeouts, and more:

>> Download the eBook

eBook – Java Concurrency – NPI EA (cat=Java Concurrency)
announcement - icon

Handling concurrency in an application can be a tricky process with many potential pitfalls. A solid grasp of the fundamentals will go a long way to help minimize these issues.

Get started with understanding multi-threaded applications with our Java Concurrency guide:

>> Download the eBook

eBook – Java Streams – NPI EA (cat=Java Streams)
announcement - icon

Since its introduction in Java 8, the Stream API has become a staple of Java development. The basic operations like iterating, filtering, mapping sequences of elements are deceptively simple to use.

But these can also be overused and fall into some common pitfalls.

To get a better understanding on how Streams work and how to combine them with other language features, check out our guide to Java Streams:

>> Join Pro and download the eBook

eBook – Persistence – NPI EA (cat=Persistence)
announcement - icon

Working on getting your persistence layer right with Spring?

Explore the eBook

Course – LS – NPI EA (cat=REST)

announcement - icon

Get started with Spring Boot and with core Spring, through the Learn Spring course:

>> CHECK OUT THE COURSE

Course – Spring Sale 2025 – NPI EA (cat= Baeldung)
announcement - icon

Yes, we're now running our Spring Sale. All Courses are 25% off until 26th May, 2025:

>> EXPLORE ACCESS NOW

Course – Spring Sale 2025 – NPI (All)
announcement - icon

Yes, we're now running our Spring Sale. All Courses are 25% off until 26th May, 2025:

>> EXPLORE ACCESS NOW

eBook Jackson – NPI EA – 3 (cat = Jackson)