Nested foreach and variables in method calls

Questions & Answers
1

Is is possible to set up a nested foreach that checks variables in classes in one list vs variables in classes in another list?

I want to see who is the most applicable for an action in my game by checking a characters skills vs all the other characters in the area. Some times a task will require multiple skills so I’m trying to get the best possible applicant for the skill

public class Activity : MonoBehaviour {

	public string name {get; set;}
	public int duration {get; set;}
	public List<string> skillsreq {get; set;}
	public List<Character> bestapplicant { get; set;}


	public Character bestapplicantfilter (List<Character> applicants)
	{
		foreach (Character applicant in applicants)
		{ int count = 0;
			foreach (string skill in skillsreq )
			{ count += 1;
				if (applicant.skills.skill.name.adjustedamount > bestapplicant[count].skills.skill.name.adjustedamount)
				{
					bestapplicant = applicant;
				}
			}
		}
	}

}

This is my general idea on how this might work. but I don’t know if I can search through a list, in a class, in a list by a variable (the skills of a character are set as a list in that character, and the characters are put in a list for organization)

2

Yes, you can search through list. For example, you can use method Find with lambda expression as parameter your if statement should look like:

if (applicant.skills.Find(sk=>sk.name==skill).adjustedamount > bestapplicant[count].skills.Find(sk=>sk.name==skill).adjustedamount)

Here sk=>sk.name==skill is lambda expression. It’s same as method that would take parameter sk do sk.name==skill comparison on it and return result of that comparison.

Be warned that if Find method doesn’t find anything, it will return null and the line I wrote will throw NullReferenceException. If you are not sure that those skills will be present in those lists, do Find(…) calls before if statement and check if their result is not null.

Also you might need to confirm access level of Skills.name field (depending on where it’s declared it might need to be public).

Also, you might consider using Dictionary or any other collection that allows you to get specific value without searching for it instead of List if you’ll ever run into performance troubles.

3

Try breaking problems like this down into smaller chunks, e.g. just think about how you could return a score for a single character:

public int GetCharacterSkillPoints(List<string> skillsRequired, Character character)
{
   int result = 0;

   foreach( Skill skill in character.skills )
   {
      if  ( skillsRequired.Contains(skill.name) )
      {
         result += skill.adjustedamount;
      }
   }

   return result;
}

Now you can put that function into your BestApplicantFilter function:

 public Character bestapplicantfilter (List<Character> applicants)
 {
   Character bestApplicant = null;
   int bestScore = -1;

   foreach (Character applicant in applicants)
   {
      int score = GetCharacterSkillPoints(skillsreq,applicant);
      if ( score > bestScore )
      {
         bestScore = score;
         bestApplicant = applicant;
      }            
    }

   return bestApplicant;
}