# Hash Tables

A hash table is one implementation of the associative array. An associative array (or map, dictionary) maintains a set of key/value pairs. This data structure supports four operations:

• Add a pair to the collection.
• Remove a pair from the collection.
• Modify the value associated with a given key.
• Find a given key's value.

To implement these operations we could just use an array (with keys as indexes). If we have a large number of potential keys, this array would be massive (or even infinitely large given string keys). But lookup would be really fast. Another implementation could store each key/value as a node in a linked list. This collection would take up far less space. But lookup would be quite slow. The hash table tries to get the advantages of both algorithms (fast lookup and space efficiency). All operations on a hash table have constant average complexity ($$O(1)$$).

## Description

A hash table maintains an array of linked lists. The algorithm converts a given key to a position in the array (done by a hash function). A collision occurs when two keys go to the same location in the array. Collisions happen because the number of keys is usually greater than the number of array slots. To resolve this problem, a linked list is found in each array slot (called a bucket). To find a key's value we search through this linked list.

### TODO Linear Probing

The above implementation uses separate chaining. Linear probing represents another approach. See page 469 of Algorithms by Sedgewick and Wayne for more information.

## Hash Function

A hash function is an function that maps a large data set to a smaller data set of a fixed length. Hash functions return a hash code (also known as hash value).

Every hash function must:

• Consistently produce the same location for a key (a pure function).
• Uniformly distribute values over a table (to reduce collisions).
• Be efficient to computer.

"The most commonly used method for hashing integers is called modular hashing: we choose the array size M to be prime and, for any positive integer key K, computer the remainder when dividing k by M…If M is not prime, it may be the case that not all of the bits of the key play a role…Modular hashing works for long keys such as strings, too: we simply treat them as huge integers." (page 460 of Algorithms by Sedgewick and Wayne).

### TODO Universal Hashing

See page 35 of Algorithms by Dasgupta, Papadimitriou, and Vazirani).

## TODO Array Resizing

See page 474 of Algorithms by Sedgewick and Wayne for more information.

## Libraries

Java's standard library provides the HashTable class.