Re: how to search an array of objects?

From:
"Daniel Pitts" <googlegroupie@coloraura.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
8 Jan 2007 11:57:09 -0800
Message-ID:
<1168286229.520866.104790@s80g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
Digging4fire@hotmail.com wrote:

hi all,

hope someone can help.

i have created a array of student objects -

each object has a string for student name
a float for mark
and a int for module number.

i need to be able to display the details for a paticular student when
the user types in the student name. so i'm thinking i need some way of
searching the array of student objects for a particular string and then
extract all details relating to that oject? not sure how though.

tia.


Searching:

private Student[] students;

public Student findStudent(String name) {
    /* for every Student in the array */
    for (Student student: students) {
        /* Does the student have the right name */
        if (student.name.equals(name)) {
            /* found the student */
            return student;
        }
   }
   /* didn't find the student */
   return null;
}

Although, a better approach would be:

public class StudentRecords {
   private Map<String, Student> studentByName
         = new HashMap<String, Student>();
   private Student[] students;
   public StudentRecords(Student...students) {
      this.students = students;
      for (Student student: students) {
          studentByName.put(student.name, student);
      }
   }

  public Student findStudent(String name) {
    return studentByName.get(name);
  }
  /* any other useful methods follow */
}

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