Question

var asdf:Array = [ [1,1] ];
trace( asdf.indexOf( [1,1] ) ); // -1

Why can’t indexOf() find the [1,1] array?

Answer 1

Here is a little function I wrote a while ago that works great. I included a lot of comments and an example search/function to output the results.

// set up a multidimensional array that contains some data
var myArray:Array = new Array();
myArray.push(["granola","people... are great"," 4 ","10"]);
myArray.push(["bill","orangutan","buster","keaton"]);
myArray.push(["steve","gates","24","yes, sometimes"]);
myArray.push(["help","dave","jobs","hal"]);

// here we set up some properties on the array object to hold our search string and our results
myArray.myTarget = "steve";
myArray.myResults = [];

// now we call the search
myArray.forEach(multiSearch);

// this is the function that does all the heavy lifting....
function multiSearch(element:*, index:int, array:Array)
{
    // see if we have a match in this array and pass back its index
    for(var i:* in element)
    {   
        if( element[i].indexOf( array.myTarget ) > -1 )
        {
            var tempArray:Array = array.myResults;
            tempArray.push([index,i]);
            array.myResults = tempArray;
        }
    }
}

// -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
// all the code below is OPTIONAL... it is just to show our results
// in the output window in Flash so you know it worked....
var printArray:Array = myArray.myResults;
for(var i:* in printArray)
{
    trace("TARGET FOUND @: "+printArray[i][0]+", "+printArray[i][1]+" = "+myArray[ printArray[i][0] ][ printArray[i][1] ]); 
}
// -------------------------------------------------------------------------------