collection issue

[jomypgeorge]

hi friends

i want to store employee data in a collection sorted with employee name. also i want to fetch employees with name starting with a given character.
(for character scroll in window)
i tried TreeMap with Structure <Character, Employee>. but it fails to add duplicate entries for a given character.
i thought of using subset() method of TreeMap to fetch all Employees with a given character.

how to handle this?
thanks in advance.......

[masijade]

Of course it does (fail that is) as that is how maps work. Simply loop through your list and check the names.

[jomypgeorge]

any other solution?

[JosAH]

any other solution?

Maps and Sets require unique keys; the first character of a name doesn't make a unique key (not even the entire name makes a unique key); possibly you have to create a unique key given the empoyee ID as the minor comparison part, i.e. <name, ID> forms the unique key. Sorted Sets and Maps can iterate over sub sets and maps ...

kind regards,

Jos

[masijade]

any other solution?

Why? What's wrong with that one?

You could always create Map as

Map<Character, List<Employee>>

of course.

[jomypgeorge]

thanks josAH and masijade
i did it with TreeMap<Character, TreeSet<Employee>>

thanks a lot