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Asked: 2026-05-22T22:15:54+00:00

I need an efficient way to look up a user by any 1 of

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I need an efficient way to look up a user by any 1 of 3 different keys. For example, by id, username or alias.

The basic concept would be a data structure in which you can use any of 3 different types of keys to look up the value:

  1. myDataStructure.lookupByName(name) -> User

  2. myDataStructure.lookupById(id) -> User

  3. myDataStructure.lookupByAlias(alias) -> User

The only immediate way I can think of doing this would be to have 3 separate dictionaries, and use the one corresponding to the type of key provided.

Is there a more efficient way?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    If you know that the keysets (names, ids and aliases) are distinct, you could put them all into a single table. Otherwise, you’d need the three separate tables that you noted.

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