Sorting a hash map

Question

I have a hashmap with strings as keys, and float values as values, like below:
{"anne=0.23453, barry=1.254339,steven=0.12449... }
what i want to do is sort this hashmap according to the float values, returning the highest float value first. What i am currently doing is, swapping the keys with the values, so that the floats are the keys, and sorting them with a hashmap:
                 Set set = map1.keySet(); 
                 Map invertedMap = new HashMap();
                 for(Object o : set)
                     float val = (Float)map1.get(o);
                     invertedMap.put(val, o);
            TreeMap sorted = new TreeMap(Collections.reverseOrder());
            sorted.putAll(map1);
            Set set1 = sorted.keySet();
              Iterator it = set1.iterator();
                    while(it.hasNext()) {
                        Object o = it.next();
                        System.out.println( o + " " + map1.get(o));
        }The problem here is that in the hash tables there a few floats are the same value, ie henry=1.6743, and mary=1.6743
so when i invert the hash table, making 1.6743 one of these is ignored. Can anbody think of a way i can do this?
Id appreciate any help
Thanks

Answer 1

Thanks, ive stored the entrySet in a list. A little
unsure how to go about writting comparator to sort
them by value though. Would you be able to explain
this in a little more detail, please?Write a class that implements java.util.Comparator. Thre's but one method to implement, that is
public int compare(Object o1, Object o2);
Expect the arguments to be keys in your map. Fetch the value for each key and compare the values. That should be a problem since, if I got it right, those are java.lang.Floats, which implement java.lang.Comparable, so you can simply return: value1.compareTo(value2).
Take a minute or two to read the Javadoc of the Comparator's compare method.