Kotlin Creating List<List<Map<String, String>>> - kotlin

Question

I am trying to return List<List<Map<String, String>>> from a function in kotlin. I'm new to kotlin.
Edit1
Here's how I am attempting to to this
val a = mutableListOf(mutableListOf(mutableMapOf<String, String>()))
The problem with the above variable is, I am unable to figure out how to insert data into this variable. I tried with this:
val a = mutableListOf(mutableListOf(mutableMapOf<String, String>()))
val b = mutableListOf(mutableMapOf<String, String>())
val c = mutableMapOf<String, String>()
c.put("c", "n")
b.add(c)
a.add(b)
This is giving me:
[[{}], [{}, {c=n}]]
What I want is [[{c=n}]]
Can someone tell me how I can insert data into it?
The end goal I am trying to achieve is to store data in the form of List<List<Map<String, String>>>
EDIT 2
The function for which I am trying to write this dat structure:
fun processReport(file: Scanner): MutableList<List<Map<String, String>>> {
val result = mutableListOf<List<Map<String, String>>>()
val columnNames = file.nextLine().split(",")
while (file.hasNext()) {
val record = mutableListOf<Map<String, String>>()
val rowValues = file.nextLine()
.replace(",(?=[^\"]*\"[^\"]*(?:\"[^\"]*\"[^\"]*)*$)".toRegex(), "")
.split(",")
for (i in rowValues.indices) {
record.add(mapOf(columnNames[i] to rowValues[i]))
print(columnNames[i] + " : " + rowValues[i] + " ")
}
result.add(record)
}
return result
}

Answer 1

You don't need to use mutable data structures. You can define it like this:
fun main() {
val a = listOf(listOf(mapOf("c" to "n")))
println(a)
}
Output:
[[{c=n}]]
If you wanted to use mutable data structures and add the data later, you could do it like this:
fun main() {
val map = mutableMapOf<String, String>()
val innerList = mutableListOf<Map<String, String>>()
val outerList = mutableListOf<List<Map<String, String>>>()
map["c"] = "n"
innerList.add(map)
outerList.add(innerList)
println(outerList)
}
The output is the same, although the lists and maps are mutable.
In response to the 2nd edit. Ah, you're parsing a CSV. You shouldn't try to do that yourself, but you should use a library. Here's an example using Apache Commons CSV
fun processReport(file: File): List<List<Map<String, String>>> {
val parser = CSVParser.parse(file, Charset.defaultCharset(), CSVFormat.DEFAULT.withHeader())
return parser.records.map {
it.toMap().entries.map { (k, v) -> mapOf(k to v) }
}
}
For the following CSV:
foo,bar,baz
a,b,c
1,2,3
It produces:
[[{foo=a}, {bar=b}, {baz=c}], [{foo=1}, {bar=2}, {baz=3}]]
Note that you can simplify it further if you're happy returning a list of maps:
fun processReport(file: File): List<Map<String, String>> {
val parser = CSVParser.parse(file, Charset.defaultCharset(), CSVFormat.DEFAULT.withHeader())
return parser.records.map { it.toMap() }
}
Output:
[{foo=a, bar=b, baz=c}, {foo=1, bar=2, baz=3}]
I'm using Charset.defaultCharset() here, but you should change it to whatever character set the CSV is in.