Why does Flex's ArrayCollection's Contain method look at memory reference?

Question

When using .contains() on an ArrayCollection in Flex, it will always look at the memory reference. It does not appear to look at an .equals() method or .toString() method or anything overridable. Instead, I need to loop through the ArrayCollection every time and check each individual item until I find what I'm looking for.

Does anyone know why Flex/ActionScript was made this way? Why not provide a way from people to use the contains() method the way they want?

Answer 1

Couldn't you just extend ArrayCollection and override the contains() method? Alternatively you can paste the source for ArrayCollection into an "mx/collections" package in your project and modify the source; this "monkey-patching technique" will override the behavior throughout your entire project. However I would be extremely cautious about changing ArrayCollection in that manner: since it's used all over the place in the Flex APIs there is a good chance you'll start breaking other components in the framework.

Answer 2

The contains() method searches by reference, correct (I believe even for primitives), so if you're trying to find a string or an int in an ArrayCollection, you'll have to do the searching yourself, by some variation of looping or searching. I don't think any of us could tell you why there isn't, say, an optional parameter on that method indicating whether to search by ref or by val, though; so it goes, as they say.

But I'd definitely warn you off monkey-patching the framework code -- that's just asking for trouble. :)