A DESCRIPTION OF THE REQUEST :
As with array initialising syntax:

//Case 1
int[] array = new int[]{0,1,2,3,4};
//Case 2
int[] array = {0,1,2,3,4};

It would be nice if I can do that with the Map class objects:

//Map or HashMap - it doesn't matter =P
Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String><String>{
        "a" -> " customer ",
        "b" -> "boy",
        "c" -> "chair"
    };

The above syntax is just a suggestion - but any syntax of this  customer  would make the use of Map's much easier. I reckon only "Case 1" is possible as "Case 2" would be ambiguous in which Map implementation to create the instance from - but if somehow we think, for example, that HashMap should be used by default that one can make available of "Case 2" as well.

JUSTIFICATION :
Since we have nice initialisers for Array's it would be handy to have these Map initialisers as well - and the fact that it is just a compile-time feature and would not do any harm to the language in terms of, for instance, backward-compatibility (do contradict me if this is not the case ^^")

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String><String>{
        "a" -> " customer ",
        "b" -> "boy",
        "c" -> "chair"
    };

ACTUAL -
Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String><String>();

map.add("a", " customer ");
map.add("b","boy");
map.add("c","chair");
  xxxxx@xxxxx   2005-03-08 17:35:22 GMT

N/A

I think this is a fine idea. Won't happen soon, but maybe someday.

  xxxxx@xxxxx   2005-04-26 17:47:37 GMT
4632701 asked for this and more some years earlier.
Posted Date : 2008-05-21 06:54:15.0

Typo - "HashMap<String><String>" should read "HashMap<String, String>" instead ^^"

I do not see that much need for this proposal. Instead, try this:
--------------------------------
Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String><String>()
{{
        put("a", " customer ");
        put("b","boy");
        put("c", "chair");
    }};
----------------------------------------------
which is perfectly valid (surprise!) language construct.

Ops ... what I meant was:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String,String>()
{{
        put("a", " customer ");
        put("b","boy");
        put("c", "chair");
    }};

the idea where x[i] compiles to x.get(i) and x[i] = a compiles to x.put( i, a ) would really improve the look of a lot of Java code. Could this be implmented as syntactic sugar in the compiler where x implements interface Map ?

If HashMap had a constructor with a variable but even number of object arguments (i.e. HashMap( Object... initialisers )) the following would be possible..

Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String,String>(
        "a", " customer ",
        "b","boy",
        "c", "chair"
);