Finding the index of the min value in the list

Question

Hi, I need to find the closest pathway-node to the game object. for that I create a list of distances to all nodes and finding the min distance. However I don't know how to get the index of that node.

 private void CurrentNode()
     {
         List<float> distances = new List<float>();
 
         for (int i = 0; i< nodes.Count; i++)
         {
             float distanceToNode = Vector3.Distance(this.transform.position, nodes[i].position);
             distances.Add(distanceToNode);
             var minDistance = Mathf.Min(distances.ToArray());
       }
     }

After this stage I need to find the index of the node with min distance but I have no idea how to do it. I'll be thankful for any ideas!

Answer 1

Best Answer

Answer by Hellium · Jul 02, 2020 at 10:59 AM

   private void CurrentNode()
  {
      int minIndex = 0;
      int minDistance = Mathf.Infinity;
 
      for (int i = 0; i< nodes.Count; i++)
      {
          float distanceToNode = (transform.position - nodes[i].position).sqrMagnitude;
          if(distanceToNode < minDistance)
          {
              minDistance = distanceToNode ;
              minIndex = i ;
          }
    }
     Debug.Log("Closest node: " + i + " - distance = " + minDistance);
  }

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Bunny83 · Jul 02, 2020 at 11:39 AM 0

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To be consistant with most C# APIs you probably want to set the index to "-1" as initial value to indicate "non found". Returning 0 or -1 does not make any difference when blindly using it as index into the array / List since this could only happen when "nodes" is empty so -1 and 0 are equally invalid. Though "-1" generally has the notion of "not found"

Another micro optimisation would be to cache transform.position since it requires one GetComponent<Transform>() call as well as reading the position property every iteration. Though this is just a $$anonymous$$or thing.

zardosch · Jul 02, 2020 at 02:24 PM 0

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your solution works beautifully!

Finding the index of the min value in the list

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