Rust Hash Maps

Description

The type HashMap<K, V> stores a mapping of keys of type K to values of type V. It does this via a hashing function, which determines how it places these keys and values into memory. Many programming languages support this kind of data structure, but they often use a different name, such as hash, map, object, hash table, dictionary, or associative array, just to name a few.

Creating a New Hash Maps

fn main() {
    use std::collections::HashMap;
 
    let mut scores = HashMap::new();
 
    scores.insert(String::from("Blue"), 10);
    scores.insert(String::from("Yellow"), 50);
 
    println!("{}", scores["Blue"])
}

collect

Another way of constructing a hash map is by using iterators and the collect method on a vector of tuples, where each tuple consists of a key and its value.

fn main() {
    use std::collections::HashMap;
 
    let teams = vec![String::from("Blue"), String::from("Yellow")];
    let initial_scores = vec![10, 50];
 
    let scores: HashMap<_, _> = teams.into_iter().zip(initial_scores.into_iter()).collect();
 
    println!("{}", scores["Blue"])
}

Ownership

For types that implement the Copy trait, like i32, the values are copied into the hash map. For owned values like String, the values will be moved and the hash map will be the owner of those values:

fn main() {
    use std::collections::HashMap;
 
    let field_name = String::from("Favorite color");
    let field_value = String::from("Blue");
 
    let mut map = HashMap::new();
    map.insert(field_name, field_value);
    // field_name and field_value are invalid at this point
}

Accessing values

fn main() {
    use std::collections::HashMap;
 
    let mut scores = HashMap::new();
 
    scores.insert(String::from("Blue"), 10);
    scores.insert(String::from("Yellow"), 50);
 
    for (key, value) in &scores {
        println!("{}: {}", key, value);
    }
}

Updating

Overwriting a Value

fn main() {
    use std::collections::HashMap;
 
    let mut scores = HashMap::new();
 
    scores.insert(String::from("Blue"), 10);
    scores.insert(String::from("Blue"), 25);
 
    println!("{:?}", scores);
}

Inserting a value only if the Key has no value

fn main() {
    use std::collections::HashMap;
 
    let mut scores = HashMap::new();
    scores.insert(String::from("Blue"), 10);
 
    scores.entry(String::from("Yellow")).or_insert(50);
    scores.entry(String::from("Blue")).or_insert(50);
 
    println!("{:?}", scores);
}

Updating a value based on the old value

fn main() {
    use std::collections::HashMap;
 
    let text = "hello world wonderful world";
 
    let mut map = HashMap::new();
 
    for word in text.split_whitespace() {
        let count = map.entry(word).or_insert(0);
        *count += 1;
    }
 
    println!("{:?}", map);
}