[Answered] Find <CustomComponent> by CustomComponent.name in a List<CustomComponent>

Good afternoon,
I'm working on an extension for unity, and I need a fast (performance) method for obtaining a Component from a known Component.name.

In that case, I have a Component called Key that has a public string name inside. I save all my Key's on List<Key> keys, and I need to recover one of that keys by key.name...

My actual code uses a second List<string> that, after List<Key> values are assigned, goes through each List<Key> value getting it's name and assigning it to List<string>. Then I've created a function that performs a binary search over the second list saving item founded index into a variable and using it to get the key that has same index (List<Key>[index]).

Is there any faster method? I need to call this on Update, so it must be as fast as posible...

Thanks everyone!

 

Dictionary

 

Never before has a one-word answer so completely and accurately answered a question....

 

Woo, thanks you! I've heard about Dictionary, but didn't imagine that was the utility... Thank tou a lot!

 

Ever since I discovered Dictionaries I use them everywhere I need fast lookups 1:1 relationships are awesome that way.

Sometimes I'll even use:

Code (CSharp):

1. Dictionary<string, List<GameObject>> master;