code: public final int getIndex(String qname)
      {
          int index;
  
          if (super.getLength() < MAX)
          {
              // if we haven't got too many attributes let the
              // super class look it up
              index = super.getIndex(qname);
              return index;
          }
          // we have too many attributes and the super class is slow
          // so find it quickly using our Hashtable.
          Integer i = (Integer)m_indexFromQName.get(qname);
          if (i == null)
              index = -1;
          else
              index = i.intValue();
          return index;
      }
docs: This method gets the index of an attribute given its qName.
  @param qname the qualified name of the attribute, e.g. "prefix1:locName1"
  @return the integer index of the attribute.
  @see org.xml.sax.Attributes#getIndex(String)