How to convert String into Hashmap in java

Question

How can I convert a String into a HashMap?

String value = "{first_name = naresh, last_name = kumar, gender = male}" 

into

Map<Object, Object> = {     first_name = naresh,     last_name = kumar,     gender = male } 

Where the keys are first_name, last_name and gender and the values are naresh, kumar, male.

Note: Keys can be any thing like city = hyderabad.

I am looking for a generic approach.

Answer 1

This is one solution. If you want to make it more generic, you can use the StringUtils library.

String value = "{first_name = naresh,last_name = kumar,gender = male}"; value = value.substring(1, value.length()-1);           //remove curly brackets String[] keyValuePairs = value.split(",");              //split the string to creat key-value pairs Map<String,String> map = new HashMap<>();                 for(String pair : keyValuePairs)                        //iterate over the pairs {     String[] entry = pair.split("=");                   //split the pairs to get key and value      map.put(entry[0].trim(), entry[1].trim());          //add them to the hashmap and trim whitespaces } 

For example you can switch

 value = value.substring(1, value.length()-1); 

to

 value = StringUtils.substringBetween(value, "{", "}"); 

if you are using StringUtils which is contained in apache.commons.lang package.