search in java ArrayList

Question

I\'m trying to figure out the best way to search a customer in an ArrayList by its Id number. The code below is not working; the compiler tells me that I am mis

Answer 1

Others have pointed out the error in your existing code, but I'd like to take two steps further. Firstly, assuming you're using Java 1.5+, you can achieve greater readability using the enhanced for loop:

Customer findCustomerByid(int id){    
    for (Customer customer : customers) {
        if (customer.getId() == id) {
            return customer;
        }
    }
    return null; 
}

This has also removed the micro-optimisation of returning null before looping - I doubt that you'll get any benefit from it, and it's more code. Likewise I've removed the exists flag: returning as soon as you know the answer makes the code simpler.

Note that in your original code I think you had a bug. Having found that the customer at index i had the right ID, you then returned the customer at index id - I doubt that this is really what you intended.

Secondly, if you're going to do a lot of lookups by ID, have you considered putting your customers into a Map?