Efficient searching through objects

[rdmurray at bitdance.com]

sert <jerry at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I have written a program that reads data and updates the records 
> for some people. They are represented by objects, and I need to 
> read the data from a file, look the person up and then update 
> his record.
> 
> I have implemented this by creating a list with all the people's 
> names and another list with their objects (their data).
> 
> It works but after profiling the code it turns out that half the 
> time spent in the program is spent in the list.index() function 
> looking up names. Isn't there a less goofy and more efficient 
> way of doing this?

It sounds like what you are looking for is the dictionary
data type.

--RDM