Druid

I have a timer in one of my forms, then an ArrayList of timestamps. I am curious as to if there is a more optimized way to see if the timer value equates to one of the entries in the timestamp array without having to call a comparison function each time the interval ticks.

The timestamps will more than likely never exceed 5. But calling a function to compare the timestamp list each time the interval of the timer triggers, seems to be a bit excessive. Is there a better way to do this?

lectricpharaoh

Okay, I don't think there's enough information there for me to have a clear idea of your problem, so let me see if I have this right:

Your timestamp values can be thought of as nonzero integer values, and may represent the number of seconds, milliseconds, or whatever that have elapsed since some defined point in time.

Your timer ticks once every so often, and increments a counter. You want to compare this counter to see if it is equal to any of the timestamp values.

Here's how I might do it. First, sort the values, and put them into a collection. Then, when going through the list, you start at the beginning, and traverse it until you either reach the end, find a match, or hit a timestamp value that is greater than your counter. If a match was found, do whatever processing is needed. Whether you hit the end or find a match, save the index of this position for subsequent searches. If your collection can contain duplicate timestamp values, repeat the search (but note it will start from where the last one ended, so the performance should be good). Given that your timer count will only increment (well, until it wraps), you cannot find a match in elements you've already checked. New ones will be added to the collection at the end, assuming that new ones will have greater time stamp values.

If there will not be duplicate entries, you might want to consider a SortedList or similar collection; retrieval may be slower, but this a) allows you to associate the keys (timestamps) with whatever objects (files, for example), and b) do the operation with one retrieval. I'm not sure if this is appropriate for your application, but I figured I'd mention it.

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Druid

The timestamp values are strings, in a time format of HH:MMS stored in an ArrayList collection.

The time ticks once every second, each time it ticks, the ArrayList of timestamps is processed top-to-bottom to check for equality.

Your example is similar to high I am currently undergoing the process. Although, I don't store the index of the timestamp. I like the idea of a SortedList though, should make the search faster.

I'm beginning to think I'm splitting atoms. I mean the max amount of timestamps may be around 5, but definitely less than 10. My main concern was just making that comparison every second that the timer control ticks.