Looking for the right collection for a specific problem

Question

Hi guys,
Just wanted to say great work you guys are doing here. the forum has definitely helped me a lot in the past.
I am currently having a problem selecting a collection for this specific application that i have to do for my final year project. I am looking for a way to store a bunch of strings a collection that uses the actual string as its key and stores the number of times that the string have been added to the collection as its value.
so for e.g
String a = "a";
String b = "b";
String a2 = "a";
String c = "c";
/**Here is where i create my collection */
// Collection mycollection = new collection
// mycollection.add(a);
// mycollection.add(b);
// mycollection.add(a2);
// mycollection.add(c);
/**if you request for the string a or a2 the collection should return the number of times that string appead e.g */
// System.out.println(mycollection.get(a));
//this should print 2
Does such a collection exist? I remember using something similar when i was learning c++ but i havent been able to find what i am looking for in the API documentation. Please help.
Frank

Answer 1

I think what the OP is looking for is probably a Bag. Unfortunately the default collections framework does not provide a Bag interface or implementation. You could look into using the Jakarta Commons Collection, they do provide those (look at the API[url] as well.