Name: rmT116609 Date: 07/08/2003


A DESCRIPTION OF THE REQUEST :
I understand why originally it might not have made sense to add Set.get(element) because obviously if you already have a reference to an element in the Set it does not make sense to get() it.

Unfortunately I believe you have overlooked its usefulness for Object Pooling. Specifically, say I have:

HashSet mySet = new HashSet();
mySet.add(new Integer(1));

- mySet.contains(new Integer(1)) will return true
- I want to get the specific object instance of Integer(1) contained within the Set for object-pooling purposes. Specifically whenever someone needs a value of Integer(1) I will refer to the same single instance as opposed to creating a new Integer object per reference.

    If you were to add this functionality I could then use:

Integer valueToCheckFor = new Integer(someValue);
valueToUse = mySet.get(valueToCheckFor));
if (valueToUse==null)
{
  valueToUse = valueToCheckFor;
  mySet.add(valueToUse);
}
//Assign the pooled object to interested party

JUSTIFICATION :
- Usefulness for object pooling

Confusion would be avoided by documentating the purpose of this function.
(Review ID: 190540)
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