Checking a word against a wordlist / Hashtables

Unity Engine
1

I first tried using an Array (just because I knew how to do it), but this didn’t go well at all. From what I gather, using a Hashtable is the best way to go about this - is that correct?

If so, does anybody have an example / link /advice they could show me that explains how to go about setting this up in Unity? I’ve followed the link to the Microsoft page via the Unity docs, but without a Unity/JS example to follow I didn’t really know where to start with it.

I have a text file with one word per line (~75k words), though I can edit this so that it has any necessary code around each word if that makes it easier. I don’t need to do anything too fancy with this, just check whether a given word is in the list or not.

Thanks all

2

I think you’d be better off using ArrayList, which has the Contains method.

var myList = new ArrayList();
...
if (myList.Contains("something"))...

–Eric

3

Hashtables also have a contains method:

var mywords = {"apple":"fruit", "monkey":"animal"};

if (mywords.ContainsKey("apple")) Debug.Log("Apple found!");
if (mywords.ContainsValue("animal")) Debug.Log("Animal found!");

But an ArrayList does allow you to access elements by index (rather than key only) and perform Sort() operations.

4

I’ve been playing around with ArrayLists as suggested and seem to be on the right track.

I take it that populating the list with .Add on start up is the only way to create the list? I tried using “var testlist = new ArrayList (“a”, “b”, “c”);” like an array, but it returns an error (no visible constructor iirc). I don’t forsee this .Add method being a problem, just want to double-check that I’m not missing something obvious!

Thank you both for your help.

5

I think you have to use Add() to populate it. There is also an AddRange(), but I haven’t tried it.

I’m curious though, why do you need a Hashtable or ArrayList for a word list? Do you really need a key value pair? Are you grouping them by category?

6

I can use .Contains on an ArrayList, but not an Array (this may vary in other languages, I couldn’t say). With an Array I had to loop through entry by entry (which just crashed Unity under the strain).

7

Actually you can do “var testlist = new ArrayList ( [“a”, “b”, “c”] );”

–Eric

8

Built in .NET arrays have a Find() and an Exists() method.

I haven’t tested them, but they may do what you need. The .NET arrays are probably going to be the fastest way to deal with a large word list.

9

:sweat_smile:

Forget all I said about key value pairs!

I was getting SortedList confused with ArrayList.

SortedList is like a hashtable with more features, an ArrayList is like a resizable .NET array.

10

Perfect, thanks.