Question

I have an array of objects. Each object has a property called name. I want to efficiently remove an object with a particular name from the array. Is this the BEST way?

  private function RemoveSpoke(Name:String):void {
    var Temp:Array=new Array;
    for each (var S:Object in Spokes) {
      if (S.Name!=Name) {
        Temp.push(S);
      }
    }
    Spokes=Temp;
  }

Answer 1

If you are willing to spend some memory on a lookup table this will be pretty fast:

private function remove( data:Array, objectTable:Object, name:String):void {
var index:int = data.indexOf( objectTable[name] );
objectTable[name] = null;
data.splice( index, 1 );
}

The test for this looks like this:

private function test():void{

var lookup:Object = {};
var Spokes:Array = [];
for ( var i:int = 0; i < 1000; i++ )
{
    var obj:Object = { name: (Math.random()*0xffffff).toString(16), someOtherProperty:"blah" };
    if ( lookup[ obj.name ] == null )
    {
        lookup[ obj.name ] = obj;
        Spokes.push( obj );
    }
}

var t:int = getTimer();
for ( var i:int = 0; i < 500; i++ )
{
    var test:Object = Spokes[int(Math.random()*Spokes.length)];
    remove(Spokes,lookup,test.name)
}
trace( getTimer() - t );

}