Leetcode 347. Top K Frequent Elements

public class Solution {
    public List<Integer> topKFrequent(int[] nums, int k) {
        // set the value of treemap as list to handle when several numbers share a same frequency
		TreeMap<Integer, List<Integer>> tm = new TreeMap<>();	
		HashMap<Integer, Integer> hm = new HashMap<>();
		
		for (int n : nums)
		    // count frequencies (*)
			hm.put(n, hm.getOrDefault(n, 0)+1);
		
		for (int num : hm.keySet()) {
			// get the frequency and set it as the key of the tree map
			// tree map sorts the key in an increasing order
			int feq = hm.get(num);
			// handle duplicate keys (*)
			if (!tm.containsKey(feq))
			    // using an ArrayList, if feq is first seen, create a new list
				tm.put(feq, new ArrayList<>());
			// append value to the list
			tm.get(feq).add(num);
		}
		
		List<Integer> ret = new ArrayList<>();
		while (ret.size() < k) {
			Map.Entry<Integer, List<Integer>> entry = tm.pollLastEntry();
			ret.addAll(entry.getValue());
		}
		
		return ret;
    }
}