The standard map/associative-array structure to use in flash actionscript 3?

Question

I'm relatively new to flash, and is confused about what I should use to store and retrieve key value pairs. After some googling I've found various map-like things to choose from:

1) Use a Object:

var map:Object = new Object();
map["key"] = "value";

The problem is that it seems to lack some very basic features. For example to even get the size of map I'd have to write a util method.

2) Use a Dictionary

What does this standard library class provide over the simple object? It seems silly for it to exist if it's functionally identical to Object.

3) Go download some custom HashMap/HashTable implementation from the web.

I've used a lot of modern languages, and this is the first time I haven't been able to find a library implementation of an associative array within 5 minutes. So I'd like to get some best-practice advice from an experienced flash developer.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Maybe your google foo is a bit weak today?

But you're right, the built-in Object object, doesn't provide many extra features.

Dictionaries have at least two important differences with Objects:

They can use any object as a key. For Objects, the key has to be a string (if you pass any other object, the toString() method will be implicitly called).

You can optionally set they keys to be weak referenced (this doesn't make much sense for Objects).

Anyway, there are a number of opensource libraries that implement various data structures and collection types.

Just from the top of my head:

http://lab.polygonal.de/ds/

http://sibirjak.com/blog/index.php/collections/as3commons-collections/