Read and write / modify a map simultaneously / concurrently with multiple Threads

When there are multiple threads modify and read a map at the same time, it can mess up the data and result in retrieving wrong information. There are several ways to solve this problem.

A. Atomic Access

This approach takes advantage of that reassigning a reference variable is atomic.

public class AtomicMapAccess {
      private HashMap<String, Integer> theMap = new HashMap<>();

      public void readMap() {
            //The localReadMap will not be affected if a new map is assigned to theMap
            //This step is atomic
            HashMap<String, Integer> localReadMap = theMap;
            Set<String> keys = localReadMap.keySet();

            for (String key : keys) {
                  System.println(localReadMap.get(key));
            }
      }

      public void modifyMap() {
            //Create a new instance of map to take all the new set of data
            HashMap<String, String> localModifyMap = new HashMap<>();
         
            Random rand = new Random();
            localModifyMap.put("key1", rand.nextInt());
            localModifyMap.put("key2", rand.nextInt());
            localModifyMap.put("key3", rand.nextInt());

            //An atomic step to assign the map with new data to theMap.
            theMap = localModifyMap;
      }

      public class writer implements Runnable {
            public void run() {
                         modifyMap();
                 
                          try {
                                Thread.sleep(20);
                          }catch(InterruptedException e) {
                                 e.printStackTrace();
                          }
             }
      }

      public class reader implements Runnable {
            public void run() {
                         readMap();
                 
                          try {
                                Thread.sleep(20);
                          }catch(InterruptedException e) {
                                 e.printStackTrace();
                          }
             }
      }

      public static void main(String[] args) {
            Thead[] writers = new Thread[3];
            for (int i=0; i<writers.length; i++) {
                  writers[i] = new Thread(newWriter());
                  writers[i].start();
                  writers[i].join();
            }

            Thread[10] readers = new Thread[10];
             for (int j=0; i<readers.length; j++) {
                   readers[j] = new Thread(new Reader());
                   readers[j].start();
                   readers[j].join();
             }
      }
}

This approach works fine if the size of the map is not very huge, for each time a thread modifies the map, it needs to reassign data from all the slots to the newly created map, which could be time consuming if the map is huge.

B. ConcurrentHashMap

ConcurrentHashMap<String, Integer>  theMap = new ConcurrentHashMap<>();

With the ConcurrentHashMap, update is done with a lock at the hashmap basket level, so that is uses multiple locks. However, iterators are designed to be used by one Thread at a time.

C. Synchronized HashMap

Map<String, Integer> theMap = Collections.synchronizedMap(new HashMap<<>());

This approach guarantees serial access, It locks at the map level, which is less efficient. Furthermore, when navigating through the map with Iterators, it is imperative to do it in a synchronized block on the map.

Set<String> keys = theMap.keySet();

synchronized(theMap) {

      for(String key : keys) {

           Integer value = theMap.get(key);

      }

}

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