为什么Hashtable ConcurrentHashmap不支持key或者value为null

1：ConcurrentHashmap、Hashtable不支持key或者value为null

在很多java资料中，都有提到 ConcurrentHashmap HashMap和Hashtable都是key-value存储结构，但他们有一个不同点是 ConcurrentHashmap、Hashtable不支持key或者value为null，而HashMap是支持的。为什么会有这个区别？在设计上的目的是什么？

在网上找到了这样的解答:The main reason that nulls aren’t allowed in ConcurrentMaps (ConcurrentHashMaps, ConcurrentSkipListMaps) is that ambiguities that may be just barely tolerable in non-concurrent maps can’t be accommodated. The main one is that if map.get(key) returns null, you can’t detect whether the key explicitly maps to null vs the key isn’t mapped. In a non-concurrent map, you can check this via map.contains(key), but in a concurrent one, the map might have changed between calls.

理解如下：ConcurrentHashmap和Hashtable都是支持并发的，这样会有一个问题，当你通过get(k)获取对应的value时，如果获取到的是null时，你无法判断，它是put（k,v）的时候value为null，还是这个key从来没有做过映射。HashMap是非并发的，可以通过contains(key)来做这个判断。而支持并发的Map在调用m.contains（key）和m.get(key),m可能已经不同了。

个人觉得这个解答还是很有道理的，也是解决了心头的一个疑惑，大牛们在设计时确实考虑的很多，在这里分享给大家。

类似的解答还有这个：
down vote
I believe it is, at least in part, to allow you to combine containsKey and get into a single call. If the map can hold nulls, there is no way to tell if get is returning a null because there was no key for that value, or just because the value was null.

Why is that a problem? Because there is no safe way to do that yourself. Take the following code:

if (m.containsKey(k)) {
   return m.get(k);
} else {
   throw new KeyNotPresentException();
}

Since m is a concurrent map, key k may be deleted between the containsKey and get calls, causing this snippet to return a null that was never in the table, rather than the desired KeyNotPresentException.

Normally you would solve that by synchronizing, but with a concurrent map that of course won’t work. Hence the signature for get had to change, and the only way to do that in a backwards-compatible way was to prevent the user inserting null values in the first place, and continue using that as a placeholder for “key not found”.

2：ConcurrentHashmap、Hashtable存null会发生什么问题

先看下HashTable的源码：

 public synchronized V put(K key, V value) {
        // Make sure the value is not null
       if (value == null) {
            throw new NullPointerException();
        }
 
        // Makes sure the key is not already in the hashtable.
        Entry tab[] = table;
       int hash = hash(key);
        int index = (hash & 0x7FFFFFFF) % tab.length;
        for (Entry<K,V> e = tab[index] ; e != null ; e = e.next) {
            if ((e.hash == hash) && e.key.equals(key)) {
                V old = e.value;
                e.value = value;
                return old;
            }
        }
 
        modCount++;
        if (count >= threshold) {
            // Rehash the table if the threshold is exceeded
            rehash();
 
            tab = table;
            hash = hash(key);
            index = (hash & 0x7FFFFFFF) % tab.length;
        }
 
        // Creates the new entry.
        Entry<K,V> e = tab[index];
        tab[index] = new Entry<>(hash, key, value, e);
        count++;
        return null;
    }

源码中判断了null value的情况，null value就抛出空指针异常异常

但是我们并没有看到判断null key然后抛出异常的语句，那么继续看看hash方法的源码就明白了：

private int hash(Object k) {
        // hashSeed will be zero if alternative hashing is disabled.
        return hashSeed ^ k.hashCode();
    }

k.hashCode()，当k出入为null key 就会报错 空指针异常。

ConcurrentHashMap同上