How to find an ArrayCollection item with a specific property value in flex4

Hi,

ArrayCollection (and similar classes) already have builtin filtering fetaures, consider below sampel based on your collection:

var collection:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection([
          {id:"1", stuff:"whatever1"},
          {id:"2", stuff:"whatever2"},
          {id:"3", stuff:"whatever3"},
          {id:"4", stuff:"whatever4"},
          {id:"5", stuff:"whatever5"},
          {id:"6", stuff:"whatever6"}
]);
var findByIdFilter:Function = function(item:Object):Boolean
{
          if(item.id == 2) return true;
          return false;
};
collection.filterFunction = findByIdFilter;
collection.refresh();
trace(collection);

(you could write more advanced "findByFilter" function of course)

it should trace:

(Array)#0
  [0] (Object)#1
    id = "2"
    stuff = "whatever2"

see docs:

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/mx/collections/ListCollectionView.html#filterFunction

and e.g.:

http://weblog.mrinalwadhwa.com/2007/07/07/flex-tip-of-the-day-filterfunction-for-real-time-filtering-of-data/

hth,

regards,

Peter

Use a method like this which will return the first object which matches the conditions:

private function findObjectByAttribute(arrayCollection:ArrayCollection,

                                                      attributeName:String, value:String):Object{

  for each (var object:Object in arrayCollection) {

                      if(object[attributeName]==value){

                            return object;

                      }

                }

  return null;

}

To find the object with id=2, you would call the above method like this:

var object:Object = findObjectByAttribute(collection, "id", "2");

I hope this helps.

-Mike

ramblingdeveloper.com