Java, searching within a list of objects?

Question

I\'m a bit lost on the way to make this happen the fastest. I have a large list of objects that have basic variable attributes (with getters / setters) and I need to do a se

Answer 1

Take a look at the binarySearch that takes a comparator:

public static int binarySearch(List list, T key, Comparator c)

So you would do something like:

class FooComparator
    implements Comparator
{
    public int compare(T a, T b)
    {
        return (a.getName().compareTo(b.getName());
    }
}

int index = Collections.binarySearch(myList, "value", new FooComparator());

You will need to first sort the list of course (Collections.sort takes a Comaprator as well...).