Question

I’m building a data structure for storing tile data from isometric maps. I’m currently using a multidimensional array with 3 axis.

var tile = tilesArray[X][Y][Z];

I’m wondering if it would be faster to use a for loop to find data

tilesArray[i] = tileObject

function getTile(x, y, z) {

    //loop through the tiles till we find the right one
    for (var i = 0; i < tilesArray.length; i += 1) {

        //grab the tile
        var tile = tilesArray[i];

        //check the tile position to see if it is the one requested
        if (tile.position[0] = x && tile.position[1] = y && tile.position[2] = z) {
            return tile;
        }   
    }

    //if the tile is not found and we fall out of the for loop return false
    return false;
}

So to recap

var tile = tilesArray[X][Y][Z];

vs

var tile = getTile(x, y, z);

Answer 1

Benchmark

The object is 2/3 times as slow in chrome 12.

The object is 1000 times slower in firefox 4. (Basically arrays are really fast in FF4, about a 1000 times faster then chrome)

Becuase the Object is nice and OO and doesn’t involve having a 3 dimensional array with a LOT of gaps I would recommend using it as its just generally a better way to store data.