Better solution for this 2x fast-enumeration? - objective-c

Question

I'm looping through an array and comparing the objects tag property in this array with the objects in another array.
Here's my code:
NSArray *objectsArray = ...;
NSArray *anotherObjectArray = ...;
NSMutableArray *mutableArray = ...;
for (ObjectA *objectA in objectsArray) {
for (ObjectZ *objectZ in anotherObjectArray) {
if ([objectA.tag isEqualToString:objectZ.tag]) {
[mutableArray addObject:objectA];
}
}
}
Is there a better way to do this?
Please note the tag property is not an integer, so have to compare strings.

Answer 1

You can do this by iterating over each array once, rather than nesting:
NSMutableSet *tagSet = [NSMutableSet setWithCapacity:[anotherObjectArray count]];
for(ObjectZ *objectZ in antherObjectArray) {
[tagSet addObject:objectZ.tag];
}
NSMutableArray *output = [NSMutableArray mutableArray];
for(ObjectA *objectA in objectsArray) {
if([tagSet containsObject:objectA.tag]) {
[output addObject:objectA];
}
}

Answer 2

May be you can use [NSArray filteredArrayUsingPredicate:]; - http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Cocoa/Reference/Foundation/Classes/NSArray_Class/NSArray.html
But you may have to tweak for property tag yourself.
NSArray *objectsArray = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:#"Miguel", #"Ben", #"Adam", #"Melissa", nil];
NSArray *tagsArray = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:#"Miguel", #"Adam", nil];
NSPredicate *sPredicate = [NSPredicate predicateWithFormat:#"SELF IN %#", tagsArray];
NSArray *results = [objectsArray filteredArrayUsingPredicate:sPredicate];
NSLog(#"Matched %d", [results count]);
for (id a in results) {
NSLog(#"Object is %#", a);
}
Hope this helps

Answer 3

Well, the simplest change (as there can only be one match per objectA) then you could do a break after your [mutableArray addObject:objectA]. When a match occurs, that would reduce the inner loop by 50%.
More dramatically, if you're doing this a lot and the order of anotherObjectArray doesn't matter, would be to invert your anotherObjectArray data structure and use a dictionary, storing the objects by tag. Then you just iterate over objectA asking if its tag is in the dictionary of ObjectZs.

Answer 4

Thanks for all the answers. While I have accepted the NSMutableSet solution, I actually ended up going with the following, as it turned out it was a tiny bit faster:
NSMutableDictionary *tagDictionary = [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithCapacity:[anotherObjectArray count]];
for (ObjectZ *objectZ in anotherObjectArray) {
[tagDictionary setObject:objectZ.tag forKey:objectZ.tag];
}
for (ObjectA *objectA in objectsArray) {
if ([tagDictionary objectForKey:objectA.tag]) {
[direction addObject:objectA];
}
}