Map of maps - how to keep the inner maps as maps?

Question

My goal is to create a map of maps so that I can retrieve info of the outer map by its key and then access its "inner" maps by their keys.

However, when I got each inner map, the map I created originally became an Object and I cannot use key to access its value as I do with the outer map.

To learn from you experts, I would like to know how to keep all the maps as maps. Or, is it possible at all?

here is my exercise program:

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Set;

public class MapExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        Map<Object,String> mp=new HashMap<Object, String>();

        // adding or set elements in Map by put method key and value pair
        mp.put(new Integer(2), "Two");
        mp.put(new Integer(1), "One");
        mp.put(new Integer(3), "Three");
        mp.put(new Integer(4), "Four");

        Map<Object,String> mp2=new HashMap<Object, String>();
        mp2.put(new Integer(2), "Two2");
        mp2.put(new Integer(1), "One2");
        mp2.put(new Integer(3), "Three2");
        mp2.put(new Integer(4), "Four2");

        Map<Object,String> mpMaps=new HashMap();

        mpMaps.put("Map1",mp);
        mpMaps.put("Map2",mp2);

        System.out.println("This is a map of Maps:   " + mpMaps); 

        for (int i=0;i<mpMaps.size();i++){
                     ArrayList a = new ArrayList(mpMaps.keySet());
                     Object o=a.get(i);
                     System.out.println("all together: " + mpMaps.size() + "each element is:  " + o + " value: " + mpMaps.get(o));
        }             
    }
}

SOLUTIONS:

   Map<Object,Map<Object,String>
    Map<String, Object> mpMaps=new HashMap<String, Object>(); 

by ameer and sleske

Answer 1

An alternate solution would be to use Commons MultiKey for avoiding map of maps. See details at http://commons.apache.org/collections/apidocs/ and org.apache.commons.collections.keyvalue.MultiKey

Answer 2

Here is the updated code that seems to work, you need to type the map of maps as <String, Object> since mp isn't a string you can't do <Object, String>.

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.Map;
import java.util.Set;
import java.util.ArrayList;

public class MapExample {

    public static void main(String[] args) {

        Map<Object,String> mp=new HashMap<Object, String>();

        // adding or set elements in Map by put method key and value pair
        mp.put(new Integer(2), "Two");
        mp.put(new Integer(1), "One");
        mp.put(new Integer(3), "Three");
        mp.put(new Integer(4), "Four");

        Map<Object,String> mp2=new HashMap<Object, String>();
        mp2.put(new Integer(2), "Two2");
        mp2.put(new Integer(1), "One2");
        mp2.put(new Integer(3), "Three2");
        mp2.put(new Integer(4), "Four2");

        Map<String, Object> mpMaps=new HashMap<String, Object>();

        mpMaps.put("Map1",mp);
        mpMaps.put("Map2",mp2);

        System.out.println("This is a map of Maps:   " + mpMaps); 

        for (int i=0;i<mpMaps.size();i++){
                     ArrayList<Object> a = new ArrayList<Object>(mpMaps.keySet());
                     Object o=a.get(i);
                     System.out.println("all together: " + mpMaps.size() + "each element is:  " + o + " value: " + mpMaps.get(o));
        }             
    }
}