WeakHashMap

An Observation
Consider the following code snippet.
1 public class TestWeakHashMap {
2 public static void main(String[] args) {
3 WeakHashMap map=new WeakHashMap();
4 String s1=new String("java");
5 map.put(s1, "good");
6 String s2=new String("java");
7 map.put(s2,"ok");
//Since s1.equals(s2) is true and hash is same, the earlier value against key s1 ("good") in the map is replaced by the new one. ("ok")
8 s1=null;
9 System.gc();
10 System.out.println(map.size());
11 }
12 }
What do we expect the output to be? 1? No thats not correct.
Here s1 and s2 are two different objects on the heap. So in line 5, a new (key,value) pair with key s1 is put into the map. Later when a (key,value) with key s2 is being put into the map, it checks for equals on s1 and s2 and their hashcode. When it finds the equals returns true and hashcde is same, it replaces the value of the earlier entry with the new value. But the issue(?) here is, WeakHashMap/HashMap does not replace the earlier key while adding a (key, value) pair whose key is actually a duplicate key in the map. So even after putting an entry with key s2, the WeakHashMap has only one entry whose key refers to the object refered by s1 and not s2. Now the object on the heap refered by s1, has one strong reference(through s1) and one weak reference through the WeakHashMap. Later when I say s1=null, the object on the heap refered to by s1 lost the strong reference and when gc happens, the entry is removed from the map.
So thats how it works.
Also note WeakHashMap is only a wrapper over HashMap and the HashMap's put api says " If the map previously contained a mapping for this key, the old value is replaced by the specified value."
So just be careful when you use WeakHashMap and your usage scenario is similar to the above.