Need help with locating a key using a value in a HashMap.

Question

I am quite new to Java and programming, and am just learning this in High School (enjoying it thoroughly). Sorry if I don't respect the etiquette or formatting of this board (it's unintentional).
I am using the book, Objects First Wth Java A Practical Introduction Using Blue J and am working on extensively improving the "World of Zuul" project. Which is a text-based adventure game.
Here is a code sample;
public String getNameFromList(String name)
  boolean found = false;
  Set pairSet = xItemList.entrySet();
  for(Iterator iter = pairSet.iterator(); (found == false && iter.hasNext());){
  Item currentItem = (Item) iter.next().getValue();
  String currentKey = currentItem.getName();
  if(name.equals(currentKey)){
    String changedName = iter.next().getKey();
    return changedName;
error; cannot resolve symbol:
method: getValue()xItemList is a HashMap with String keys, and Item values.
The relevant field of Item is name, which is a string.
The currentKey local variable is a little misleading, it is the current name, but acts as the 'key' when looking for the actual key.
changedName (if the parameter name is found from the item.getNames()), is what the method returns, the key associated with a object (by looking at the object's field).
My objective for this method is for it to have a name as a parameter, which it searches for in the HashMap (by Iteration over the entrySet - or I suppose iteration over Set values(), but this loses which object value is tied to which key, doesn't it?), and returns the respective key.
Any help would be very much appreciated (even if it is telling me that this can't be done with HashMaps!).

Answer 1

It's not clear to me what your question is, or if indeed you even have a question.
You seem to be having a problem with types. Iterators return Objects.
So in this line:
  Item currentItem = (Item) iter.next().getValue();The iterator's next() method is returning an Object, and you're trying to call getValue() on that Object. But Object doesn't have a getValue() method. That would explain your error message. Map.Entry does; you apparently meant to call Map.Entry's getValue() method. You would cast the result of iter.next() to Map.Entry before you call getValue().
Also you're calling next() on your iterator twice in the body of the loop, which means you're getting two different values... this is probably not what you intend.
But you're making this more complicated than it needs to be anyway.
Why are you iterating through the set of entries in the HashMap?
The whole point of a Map is that you get an item using an object as the key. Just do xItemList.get(name). Right?