Searching LinkedHashMap, faster method than sequential?

Question

I am wondering if there is a more efficient method for getting objects out of my LinkedHashMap with timestamps greater than a specified time. I.e. something better than the following:

    Iterator<Foo>  it = foo_map.values().iterator();
    Foo foo;

    while(it.hasNext()){
        foo = it.next();
        if(foo.get_timestamp() < minStamp) continue;

        break;
    }

In my implementation, each of my objects has essentially three values: an "id," "timestamp," and "data." The objects are insterted in order of their timestamps, so when I call an iterator over the set, I get ordered results (as required by the linked hashmap contract). The map is keyed to the object's id, so I can quickly lookup them up by id.

When I look them up by a timestamp condition, however, I get an iterator with sorted results. This is an improvement over a generic hashmap, but I still need to iterate sequentially over much of the range until I find the next entry with a higher timestamp than the specified one.

Since the results are already sorted, is there any algorithm I can pass the iterator (or collection to), that can search it faster than sequential? If I went with a treemap as an alternative, would it offer overall speed advantages, or is it doing essentially the same thing in the background? Since the collection is sorted by insertion order already, I'm thinking tree map has a lot more overhead I don't need?

Answer 1

There is no faster way ... if you just use a LinkedHashMap.

If you want faster access, you need to use a different data structure. For example, a TreeSet with an appropriate comparator might be a better solution for this aspect of your problem. For example if your TreeSet is ordered by date, then calling tailSet with an appropriate dummy value can give you all elements greater or equal to a given date.

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Since the results are already sorted, is there any algorithm I can pass the iterator (or collection to), that can search it faster than sequential?

Not for a LinkedHashMap.

However, if the ordered list was an ArrayList instead, then you could use "binary search" on the list ... provided that you could lock it to prevent concurrent modifications while you are searching. (Actually, concurrency is a potential issue to consider no matter how you implement this ... including your current linear search.)

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If you want to keep the ability to do id lookups, then you need two data structures; e.g. a TreeSet and a HashMap which share their element objects. A TreeSet will probably be more efficient than trying to maintain an ArrayList in order assuming that there are random insertions and/or random deletions.