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Improve LookupByKey , update docs
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@@ -131,6 +131,36 @@ object are prefixed with `Get`, e.g.:
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monster.GetPos(preconstructedPos);
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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## Storing dictionaries in a FlatBuffer
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FlatBuffers doesn't support dictionaries natively, but there is support to
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emulate their behavior with vectors and binary search, which means you
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can have fast lookups directly from a FlatBuffer without having to unpack
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your data into a `Dictionary` or similar.
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To use it:
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- Designate one of the fields in a table as they "key" field. You do this
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by setting the `key` attribute on this field, e.g.
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`name:string (key)`.
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You may only have one key field, and it must be of string or scalar type.
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- Write out tables of this type as usual, collect their offsets in an
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array.
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- Instead of calling standard generated method,
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e.g.: `Monster.createTestarrayoftablesVector`,
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call `CreateMySortedVectorOfTables` in C# or
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`createSortedVectorOfTables` (from the `FlatBufferBuilder` object) in Java,
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which will first sort all offsets such that the tables they refer to
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are sorted by the key field, then serialize it.
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- Now when you're accessing the FlatBuffer, you can use `LookupByKey`
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to access elements of the vector, e.g.:
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`Monster.lookupByKey(tablesVectorOffset, "Frodo", dataBuffer)`,
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which returns an object of the corresponding table type,
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or `null` if not found.
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`LookupByKey` performs a binary search, so should have a similar speed to
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`Dictionary`, though may be faster because of better caching. `LookupByKey`
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only works if the vector has been sorted, it will likely not find elements
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if it hasn't been sorted.
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## Text parsing
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There currently is no support for parsing text (Schema's and JSON) directly
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