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Optimizing Android App With ArrayMap&SparseArray

The document discusses data structures for storing key-value pairs in Android applications. It compares HashMap to more memory efficient alternatives like ArrayMap and SparseArray. ArrayMap and SparseArray store keys and values in two small arrays rather than one large array like HashMap. SparseArray is similar but uses primitive types as keys. These alternatives are generally better for Android if inserts/deletes are infrequent and the number of items is less than 1000.

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Sudhira Ayyagary
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58 views

Optimizing Android App With ArrayMap&SparseArray

The document discusses data structures for storing key-value pairs in Android applications. It compares HashMap to more memory efficient alternatives like ArrayMap and SparseArray. ArrayMap and SparseArray store keys and values in two small arrays rather than one large array like HashMap. SparseArray is similar but uses primitive types as keys. These alternatives are generally better for Android if inserts/deletes are infrequent and the number of items is less than 1000.

Uploaded by

Sudhira Ayyagary
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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App optimization with ArrayMap &


SparseArray in Android
Ankit
Sinhal
Mar 26, 2017 · 4 min read

Collections are the most common thing used in the software development. In general
whenever we required to store data in key value pairs, the very first data structure that
comes to our mind is HashMap. It is quite flexible hence it is the most preferred data
structure choice to store key value pairs.

To improve the performance of Android application, Android system provides set of


collections build especially for mobile development.

So ArrayMap and SparseArray are intended to be more memory efficient than


using a HashMap.

How HashMap works?


HashMap is basically an Array of HashMap.Entry objects. Entry is inner class of
HashMap which holds the key and values.
HashMap which holds the key and values.

When a key-value pair is inserted into a HashMap, a hashCode of the key is calculated,
and that value is assigned to the hashCode variable of EntryClass. Now using
hashCode, we can get the index of the bucket where it will be stored. In case bucket
has a pre-existing element, the new element is inserted with the last element pointing to
new one essentially making the bucket a linked list.

It has a constant time, or O(1) time requirement for retrieving an element from the array.
This means that it takes the same time to pull any element from the array, regardless of
the size. This is possible by using a hashing function, which generates the array
indices, given the input key.

A Hashmap is used to map Integer keys to an object.

Below are the example code to create HashMap and fetch keys and values:

1 HashMap< String, String> map = new HashMap< String, String>();


2 map.put(“Key1”, "Value1");
3 map.put(“Key2”, " Value2");
4 map.put(“Key3”, " Value3");
5
6 Set set = hmap.entrySet();
7 Iterator iterator = set.iterator();
8
9 // Iterate over HashMap
10 while(iterator.hasNext()) {
11 Map.Entry mEntry = (Map.Entry)iterator.next();
12 String key = mEntry.getKey();
How ArrayMap works?
ArrayMap contains two small array instead of one in a HashMap. The first array (Hash-
Array) contains the specified hash keys in sorted order. The second array (Key Value
Array) stores the keys and values of the objects according to the first array.

When we fetch an item, a binary-search is done on the Hash-Array to find a matching


hash the index and then directly return the key-value pair from the second array (Key
Value Array). If the key in the second array (Key Value Array), doesn’t match then a
linearly walk is done over the second array (Key Value Array) to resolve the collision.

Below are the example code to create ArrayMap and fetch keys and values:

1 ArrayMap<String, String> arrayMap = new ArrayMap<>();


2 arrayMap.put(“Key1”, “Value1”);
3 arrayMap.put(“Key2”, “Value2”);
4 arrayMap.put(“Key3”, “Value3”);
5
6 for (int i = 0; i < arrayMap.size(); i++) {
7 String key = arrayMap.keyAt(i);
8 String value = arrayMap.valueAt(i);
9 }

ArrayMap hosted with ❤ by GitHub view raw

How SparseArray works?


The main difference from ArrayMap is that, in SparseArray key is always primitive types.
In other respects the principle of operation is similar. Sparse arrays can be used to
replace hash maps when the key is a primitive type. SparseArray is designed to remove
the auto-boxing problem (ArrayMap does not avoid the auto-boxing problem). This
the auto-boxing problem (ArrayMap does not avoid the auto-boxing problem). This
approach affects the memory consumption.

Below are the example code to create SparseArray:

1 SparseArray sparseArray = new SparseArray();


2 sparseArray.put(1, “Value1”);
3
4 SparseLongArray sparseLongArray = new SparseLongArray();
5 sparseLongArray.put(1, 1L);
6
7 SparseBooleanArray sparseBooleanArray = new SparseBooleanArray();
8 sparseBooleanArray.put(1, true);
9
10 SparseIntArray sparseIntArray = new SparseIntArray();
11 sparseIntArray.put(1, 2);

Class appear even in the API 1, but has been redesigned in the API 11. The updated
version SparseArrayCompat also available for older devices in the compatibility library.

There are several other types of SparseArray:

LongSparseArray, SparseIntArray, SparseBooleanArray etc.

HashMap can be replaced by the followings Array Class:

Comparison
Continuous allocation and de-allocation of memory along with garbage collection will
cause lag in Android application and it reduces the application performance. Other than
this ArrayMap & SparseArray avoid memory problem by using 2 small arrays rather
than one big one.

Benefits to use SparseArray over HashMap is:

· More memory efficient by using primitives

· No auto-boxing
· Allocation-free

Drawbacks:

· For large collections, it is slower

· It only available for Android

In general if inserts or deletes are fairly infrequent, and the number of items is < 1000
then ArrayMap / SparseArray classes are really good replacement classes.

This video from Android developers will provide you further details.

Conclusion
As we can conclude that the SparseArray is a more efficient solution than using a
Hashmap to map Integers to objects. The theory is that the SparseArray can add and
retrieve elements quicker than a HashMap (<1000), in this case, by removing the
hashing function processing time.

Thanks for reading. To help others please click ❤ to recommend this article if you found
it helpful.

Check out my blogger page for more interesting topics on Software development.

You can also follow me at Twitter GitHub


Programming Data Structures Android Android App Development AndroidDev

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