I've been reading a book about data structures and today I read through the chapter on hash tables. I understand the topic well, but the one thing the book didn't really cover is the point to using hash tables. I can't think of any real use where a hash table will be more effective than something else(I do know that hash tables are used later in the book, for things like compression and advanced filing/searching). Maybe I'm missing some of the point of hash tables.
i think ext2 uses hash tables to access files quicker, if I remember right.
// for those who don't know, ext2 is a filesystem like fat32 or ntfs
Last edited by chrismiceli; 08-18-2003 at 06:44 AM.
That's exactly right. The point of a hash table is faster searching. Consider a linked list with many entries. To find a given entry, you start at the beginning, and increment through the list until you find the one you want.
With a hash table, you have automaticly (based on the hash key) reduced your search times by N amount, where N is the number of buckets in your hash table.
So if you have 100 entries, and 10 buckets, you have effectively reduced your search time to 1/10th of what it would normally take.
Quzah.
Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.
