Convert HashMap.toString() back to HashMap in Java

toString() approach relies on implementation of toString() and it can be lossy in most of the cases.

There cannot be non lossy solution here. but a better one would be to use Object serialization

serialize Object to String

private static String serialize(Serializable o) throws IOException {
    ByteArrayOutputStream baos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
    ObjectOutputStream oos = new ObjectOutputStream(baos);
    oos.writeObject(o);
    oos.close();
    return Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(baos.toByteArray());
}

deserialize String back to Object

private static Object deserialize(String s) throws IOException,
        ClassNotFoundException {
    byte[] data = Base64.getDecoder().decode(s);
    ObjectInputStream ois = new ObjectInputStream(
            new ByteArrayInputStream(data));
    Object o = ois.readObject();
    ois.close();
    return o;
}

Here if the user object has fields which are transient, they will be lost in the process.

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old answer

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Once you convert HashMap to String using toString(); It's not that you can convert back it to Hashmap from that String, Its just its String representation.

You can either pass the reference to HashMap to method or you can serialize it

Here is the description for toString() toString()
Here is the sample code with explanation for Serialization.

and to pass hashMap to method as arg.

public void sayHello(Map m){

}
//calling block  
Map  hm = new HashMap();
sayHello(hm);

It will work if toString() contains all data needed to restore the object. For example it will work for map of strings (where string is used as key and value):

// create map
Map<String, String> map = new HashMap<String, String>();
// populate the map

// create string representation
String str = map.toString();

// use properties to restore the map
Properties props = new Properties();
props.load(new StringReader(str.substring(1, str.length() - 1).replace(", ", "\n")));       
Map<String, String> map2 = new HashMap<String, String>();
for (Map.Entry<Object, Object> e : props.entrySet()) {
    map2.put((String)e.getKey(), (String)e.getValue());
}

This works although I really do not understand why do you need this.

you cannot do this directly but i did this in a crazy way as below...

The basic idea is that, 1st you need to convert HashMap String into Json then you can deserialize Json using Gson/Genson etc into HashMap again.

@SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
private HashMap<String, Object> toHashMap(String s) {
    HashMap<String, Object> map = null;
    try {
        map = new Genson().deserialize(toJson(s), HashMap.class);
    } catch (TransformationException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
    return map;
}

private String toJson(String s) {
    s = s.substring(0, s.length()).replace("{", "{\"");
    s = s.substring(0, s.length()).replace("}", "\"}");
    s = s.substring(0, s.length()).replace(", ", "\", \"");
    s = s.substring(0, s.length()).replace("=", "\":\"");
    s = s.substring(0, s.length()).replace("\"[", "[");
    s = s.substring(0, s.length()).replace("]\"", "]");
    s = s.substring(0, s.length()).replace("}\", \"{", "}, {");
    return s;
}

implementation...

HashMap<String, Object> map = new HashMap<String, Object>();
map.put("Name", "Suleman");
map.put("Country", "Pakistan");
String s = map.toString();
HashMap<String, Object> newMap = toHashMap(s);
System.out.println(newMap);