--- Roger D Vargas <luo_hei@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > I would like to know what STL container provides faster access time > in > short lists of elements. In my game, entities have some properties: > > basic stats, attributes and skills, which I plan to unify under a > single > data structure. Such lists of properties are accessed by scripts > and > currently Im using lists. Does vectors or maps provides faster > access > when number of elements is less than 10-20? I can depend. Is the vector going to be in a sorted order? If so, you could use a binary search on a vector and the speed may be a hair better in lookup times than a map. Why? If I'm correct, most STL maps are organized in some sort of binary tree (not a hash table although there STL implementations that offer a hash table map.) Hopefully they use some sort of balancing binary tree instead of the brain dead simple binary tree. But even the balancing binary tress can be a bit lob sided so it'll give you roughly O(logN) in search but not quite. If the vector is unsorted and you have to do a linear search on the data then the vector method will lose if the vector grows to contain more than 4 to 6 elements over a hash table or balanced binary tree implementation. Hash table will be fastest. It borders on almost O(1) if you set the hash table to be a proper size to your intended use. Robbert de Groot Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk email the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail at http://mrd.mail.yahoo.com/try_beta?.intl=ca --------------------- To unsubscribe go to http://gameprogrammer.com/mailinglist.html