Reversing a HashMap from Map<String, Boolean> to Map<Boolean, List<String>>

Question

Is there a more elegant/built-in way to reverse the keys and values of a Hashmap?

I currently have the following.

private Map<Boolean, List<String>> reverseMap(Map<String, Boolean> permissions) {
    List<String> allow = new ArrayList<String>();
    List<String> deny = new ArrayList<String>();
    Map<Boolean, List<String>> returnvalue = new HashMap<Boolean, List<String>>();

    for (Entry<String, Boolean> entry : permissions.entrySet()) {
        if(entry.getValue()) {
            allow.add(entry.getKey());
        } else {
            deny.add(entry.getKey());
        }
    }

    returnvalue.put(true, allow);
    returnvalue.put(false, deny);
    return returnvalue;
}

Answer 1

You might consider using one of Guava's Multimap implementations. For example:

private Multimap<Boolean, String> reverseMap(Map<String, Boolean> permissions) {
   Multimap<Boolean, String> multimap = ArrayListMultimap.create();
   for (Map.Entry<String, Boolean> entry : permissions.entrySet()) {
      multimap.put(entry.getValue(), entry.getKey());
   }
   return multimap;
}

Or more generally:

private static <K, V> Multimap<V, K> reverseMap(Map<K, V> source) {
   Multimap<V, K> multimap = ArrayListMultimap.create();
   for (Map.Entry<K, V> entry : source.entrySet()) {
      multimap.put(entry.getValue(), entry.getKey());
   }
   return multimap;
}

Answer 2

I'd do something similar (but if you must do this kind of thing frequently, consider Guava), only replacing the List with Set (seems a little more consistent) and prefilling the reversemap:

private Map<Boolean, Set<String>> reverseMap(Map<String, Boolean> permissions) {
    Map<Boolean, Set<String>> returnvalue = new HashMap<Boolean, Set<String>>();
    returnvalue.put(Boolean.TRUE, new HashSet<String>());
    returnvalue.put(Boolean.FALSE, new HashSet<String>());
    for (Entry<String, Boolean> entry : permissions.entrySet()) 
        returnvalue.get(entry.getValue()).add(entry.getKey());
    return returnvalue;
}