Thread: OpenGL Objects

Originally Posted by 0x47617279

Thanks for the quick reply. I'm just looking for people's views on the subject.

At the moment I'm using structures with multi-dimensional pointer arrays, mainly because I'm more comfortable with them. I was wondering if I should of been using linked list because I've mostly over looked them, and thought it might be wise to get a little insight into it before I start to create any larger projects.

What are you doing most with the data? Inserting, Removing, Accessing, traversing etc.. most often/importantly?

As far as using a linked list (of any kind, except maybe a skip list) a good question to rule them out is "Do I need random access on this data?". Random access on an array is O(1) on a linked list it is worst case O(N) where N is the total number of items in the list.

If random access is not needed, or if you need something like a Stack, queue, dequeue, FIFO, LIFO etc.. type structure then a linked list is the best thing because you can get O(1) insert/removal from the Head/tail of the list (tail only with a double linked list).

I think you need to explain the use case of this "multi-dimensional pointer array" structure you keep mentioning more before we can make a real critique on what data structure would be better.