Hierarchy of Collection Framework

Let us see the hierarchy of Collection framework. The java.util package contains all the classes and interfaces for the Collection framework.

Collection Interface

The Collection interface is the interface which is implemented by all the classes in the collection framework. It declares the methods that every collection will have. In other words, we can say that the Collection interface builds the foundation on which the collection framework depends.

List Interface

List interface is the child interface of Collection interface. It inhibits a list type data structure in which we can store the ordered collection of objects. It can have duplicate values.

ArrayList

The ArrayList class implements the List interface. It uses a dynamic array to store the duplicate element of different data types. The ArrayList class maintains the insertion order and is non-synchronized. The elements stored in the ArrayList class can be randomly accessed. Consider the following example.

LinkedList

LinkedList implements the Collection interface. It uses a doubly linked list internally to store the elements. It can store the duplicate elements. It maintains the insertion order and is not synchronized. In LinkedList, the manipulation is fast because no shifting is required.

Set Interface

Set Interface in Java is present in java.util package. It extends the Collection interface. It represents the unordered set of elements which doesn’t allow us to store the duplicate items. We can store at most one null value in Set. Set is implemented by HashSet, LinkedHashSet, and TreeSet

HashSet

HashSet class implements Set Interface. It represents the collection that uses a hash table for storage. Hashing is used to store the elements in the HashSet. It contains unique items.

LinkedHashSet

LinkedHashSet class represents the LinkedList implementation of Set Interface. It extends the HashSet class and implements Set interface. Like HashSet, It also contains unique elements. It maintains the insertion order and permits null elements.

SortedSet Interface

SortedSet is the alternate of Set interface that provides a total ordering on its elements. The elements of the SortedSet are arranged in the increasing (ascending) order. The SortedSet provides the additional methods that inhibit the natural ordering of the elements.

TreeSet

Java TreeSet class implements the Set interface that uses a tree for storage. Like HashSet, TreeSet also contains unique elements. However, the access and retrieval time of TreeSet is quite fast. The elements in TreeSet stored in ascending order.

Queue Interface

Queue interface maintains the first-in-first-out order. It can be defined as an ordered list that is used to hold the elements which are about to be processed. There are various classes like PriorityQueue, Deque, and ArrayDeque which implements the Queue interface.

PriorityQueue

The PriorityQueue class implements the Queue interface. It holds the elements or objects which are to be processed by their priorities. PriorityQueue doesn’t allow null values to be stored in the queue.

Deque Interface

Deque interface extends the Queue interface. In Deque, we can remove and add the elements from both the side. Deque stands for a double-ended queue which enables us to perform the operations at both the ends.

ArrayDeque

ArrayDeque class implements the Deque interface. It facilitates us to use the Deque. Unlike queue, we can add or delete the elements from both the ends.

ArrayDeque is faster than ArrayList and Stack and has no capacity restrictions.