Performance hit incurred using NSMutableDictionary vs. NSMutableArray>

Question

I am considering using an NSMutableDictionary in place of my current NSMutableArray. This is primarily for KVC/KVO reasons. The collection will undergo heavy mutation within the inner loop of my drawing method. Can I expect to incur a significant performance hit if I go ahead with this replacement?

Cheers, Doug

Answer 1

The only way to be sure is to measure. None of us have enough knowledge about how NSMutableDictionary's and NSMutableArray's implementations work, so there's little point asking.

Granted, you could probably expect some hit since the dictionary has to do additional hashing that a simple array would not. Whether or not that is "significant" is hard to say.

Again, measure.