Get specific objects from ArrayList when objects were added anonymously?

Question

I have created a short example of my problem. I'm creating a list of objects anonymously and adding them to an ArrayList. Once items are in the ArrayList I later come back and add more information to each object within the list. Is there a way to extract a specific object from the list if you do not know its index?

I know only the Object's 'name' but you cannot do a list.get(ObjectName) or anything. What is the recommended way to handle this? I'd rather not have to iterate through the entire list every time I want to retrieve one specific object.

public class TestCode{

    public static void main (String args []) {
        Cave cave = new Cave();

        // Loop adds several Parties to the cave's party list
        cave.parties.add(new Party("FirstParty")); // all anonymously added
        cave.parties.add(new Party("SecondParty"));
        cave.parties.add(new Party("ThirdParty"));

        // How do I go about setting the 'index' value of SecondParty for example?
    }
}

class Cave {
    ArrayList<Party> parties = new ArrayList<Party>();
}

class Party extends CaveElement{
    int index;

    public Party(String n){
        name = n;
    }

   // getter and setter methods 

    public String toString () {
        return name;
    }
}


class CaveElement {
    String name = "";
    int index = 0;

    public String toString () {
        return name + "" + index;
    }
}

Answer 1

Given the use of List, there's no way to "lookup" a value without iterating through it...

For example...

Cave cave = new Cave();

// Loop adds several Parties to the cave's party list
cave.parties.add(new Party("FirstParty")); // all anonymously added
cave.parties.add(new Party("SecondParty"));
cave.parties.add(new Party("ThirdParty"));

for (Party p : cave.parties) {
    if (p.name.equals("SecondParty") {
        p.index = ...;
        break;
    }
}

Now, this will take time. If the element you are looking for is at the end of the list, you will have to iterate to the end of the list before you find a match.

It might be better to use a Map of some kind...

So, if we update Cave to look like...

class Cave {
    Map<String, Party> parties = new HashMap<String, Party>(25);
}

We could do something like...

Cave cave = new Cave();

// Loop adds several Parties to the cave's party list
cave.parties.put("FirstParty", new Party("FirstParty")); // all anonymously added
cave.parties.put("SecondParty", new Party("SecondParty"));
cave.parties.put("ThirdParty", new Party("ThirdParty"));

if (cave.parties.containsKey("SecondParty")) {
    cave.parties.get("SecondParty").index = ...
}

Instead...

Ultimately, this will all depend on what it is you want to achieve...

Answer 2

List.indexOf() will give you what you want, provided you know precisely what you're after, and provided that the equals() method for Party is well-defined.

Party searchCandidate = new Party("FirstParty");
int index = cave.parties.indexOf(searchCandidate);

This is where it gets interesting - subclasses shouldn't be examining the private properties of their parents, so we'll define equals() in the superclass.

@Override
public boolean equals(Object o) {
    if (this == o) {
        return true;
    }
    if (!(o instanceof CaveElement)) {
        return false;
    }

    CaveElement that = (CaveElement) o;

    if (index != that.index) {
        return false;
    }
    if (name != null ? !name.equals(that.name) : that.name != null) {
        return false;
    }

    return true;
}

It's also wise to override hashCode if you override equals - the general contract for hashCode mandates that, if x.equals(y), then x.hashCode() == y.hashCode().

@Override
public int hashCode() {
    int result = name != null ? name.hashCode() : 0;
    result = 31 * result + index;
    return result;
}