ActionMap provides mappings from Objects (called keys or Action names) to Actions. An ActionMap is usually used with an InputMap to locate a particular action when a key is pressed. As with InputMap, an ActionMap can have a parent that is searched for keys not defined in the ActionMap.

As with InputMap if you create a cycle, eg:

   ActionMap am = new ActionMap();
   ActionMap bm = new ActionMap():
   am.setParent(bm);
   bm.setParent(am);
 

some of the methods will cause a StackOverflowError to be thrown.