/* * Copyright (c) 1995, 2020, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. * * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as * published by the Free Software Foundation. Oracle designates this * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided * by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code. * * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that * accompanied this code). * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version * 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, * Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. * * Please contact Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA * or visit www.oracle.com if you need additional information or have any * questions. */ package java.util; /** * The {@code Dictionary} class is the abstract parent of any * class, such as {@code Hashtable}, which maps keys to values. * Every key and every value is an object. In any one {@code Dictionary} * object, every key is associated with at most one value. Given a * {@code Dictionary} and a key, the associated element can be looked up. * Any non-{@code null} object can be used as a key and as a value. *
* As a rule, the {@code equals} method should be used by * implementations of this class to decide if two keys are the same. *
* NOTE: This class is obsolete. New implementations should
* implement the Map interface, rather than extending this class.
*
* @see java.util.Map
* @see java.lang.Object#equals(java.lang.Object)
* @see java.lang.Object#hashCode()
* @see java.util.Hashtable
* @since 1.0
*/
public abstract
class Dictionary
* If this dictionary already contains an entry for the specified
* {@code key}, the value already in this dictionary for that
* {@code key} is returned, after modifying the entry to contain the
* new element. If this dictionary does not already have an entry
* for the specified {@code key}, an entry is created for the
* specified {@code key} and {@code value}, and {@code null} is
* returned.
*
* The {@code value} can be retrieved by calling the
* {@code get} method with a {@code key} that is equal to
* the original {@code key}.
*
* @param key the hashtable key.
* @param value the value.
* @return the previous value to which the {@code key} was mapped
* in this dictionary, or {@code null} if the key did not
* have a previous mapping.
* @throws NullPointerException if the {@code key} or
* {@code value} is {@code null}.
* @see java.lang.Object#equals(java.lang.Object)
* @see java.util.Dictionary#get(java.lang.Object)
*/
public abstract V put(K key, V value);
/**
* Removes the {@code key} (and its corresponding
* {@code value}) from this dictionary. This method does nothing
* if the {@code key} is not in this dictionary.
*
* @param key the key that needs to be removed.
* @return the value to which the {@code key} had been mapped in this
* dictionary, or {@code null} if the key did not have a
* mapping.
* @throws NullPointerException if {@code key} is {@code null}.
*/
public abstract V remove(Object key);
}