Base type for all annotatable core objects. Should usually be instantiated as {@link ArrayCoreMap}. Many common key definitions live in {@link edu.stanford.nlp.ling.CoreAnnotations}, but others may be defined elsewhere. See {@link edu.stanford.nlp.ling.CoreAnnotations} for details.
Note that implementations of this interface must take care to implement equality correctly: by default, two CoreMaps are .equal if they contain the same keys and all corresponding values are .equal. Subclasses that wish to change this behavior (such as {@link HashableCoreMap}) must make sure that all other CoreMap implementations have a special case in their .equals to use that equality definition when appropriate. Similarly, care must be taken when defining hashcodes. The default hashcode is 37 * sum of all keys' hashcodes plus the sum of all values' hashcodes. However, use of this class as HashMap keys is discouraged because the hashcode can change over time. Consider using a {@link HashableCoreMap}.
@author dramage @author rafferty | |