Using char[] as key in a HashMap

Hi All

In the application that we are building we have the need to maintain some objects in memory in a HashMap keyed by a String. But it seems that the overhead of the String is such that the overhead is more than the length of the characters in the String. I was thinking of reducing the memory footprint significantly by replacing the key with a char[] of the String. How can I achieve this? How can I implement the hashCode() and equals() of char[]? Do I have to do it with a class that wraps the char[]?

Thanks
A

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