Question

I currently have an arraylist containing classes in C#. The arraylist is filled like this:

 foreach (XmlElement Path in locaties)
                    {


                        ISoundSource track = engine.AddSoundSourceFromFile(Path.InnerXml);

                        mixarray.Add(track);

                    }

then the array has many ISoundSource classes as its items. Now the thing that sets them apart in the array is their ‘name’ property. Later on I want to get the ISoundSource from the array by doing a search. I looked up on how to search arraylists and it is said to use a binarysearch but I don’t see a way to look up an object with a certain property. How can I get the item from the array which has the name I specify?

Answer 1

You should probably use a Dictionary<,> as it will be much easier to maintain. Also, you should use List<> instead of ArrayList. If you must use BinarySearch, you will have to pass it a custom implementation of IComparer in order to have it use the Name property. Here’s an example with a dictionary:

var dictionary = new Dictionary<string, ISoundSource>();
foreach (XmlElement Path in locaties)
{
    ISoundSource track = engine.AddSoundSourceFromFile(Path.InnerXml);
    mixarray.Add(track);
    dictionary[track.Name] = track;
}

ISoundSource item = dictionary["MyTrackName"];