The existence of the Map.Entry objects in Java implies a bucket based approach, but I don't think that's how it works these days, except perhaps for LinkedHashM

The existence of the Map.Entry objects in Java implies a bucket based approach, but I don't think that's how it works these days, except perhaps for LinkedHashMap. This stack overflow answer implies the Map.Entry objects are reused during iteration which means they don't need to exist the rest of the time and a flat KVKVKV backing array could be used. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5455824/doesnt-that-iterate-thru-entryset-create-too-many-map-entry-instances/5455903 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5455824/doesnt-that-iter... Alternatively, new Entry objects are created for each step of the iteration, then heavy inlining could enable the JIT to eliminate that allocation again.