UBB.Developers Forums Community Development Programming PHP and Server-side Scripting Array vs Hash Efficiancy

Ok.. here's the situation:

I need to read in data to a file, each line of the file has two parts, lets say A and B. After i read the data into a structure, i need to search the structure for A, and then find the value of B.

Now, in this case which would be more efficiant? a hash or an array? I'm reasonably sure a hash would be more efficiant for access, but I'm not sure how to read the data into the Hash from a file, assigning A to the key and B to the value.

Or would it just be more efficiant to loop through the file directly?

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Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to
build bigger and better idiot- proof programs, and the Universe trying
to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

If you are looking for two pieces to be related to each other, then a hash is the way to go. An array is essentially a single, sequential list.

Assuming 1 set of data per line, pipe deliminated:


--mark

[This message has been edited by Mark Badolato (edited September 21, 2000).]