Erica

[norrise120]

Hash Table Practice

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Comprehension Questions

Question	Answer
Why is a good Hash Function Important?	It is important so that the keys are distributed evenly, resulting in less collisions and quicker look up.
How can you judge if a hash function is good or not?	It should distribute keys evenly and keep similar keys separated. It should also appear random.
Is there a perfect hash function? If so what is it?	A perfect hash function would have O(1) look-up every time. I don't think this has been achieved yet.
Describe a strategy to handle collisions in a hash table	One way to handle collisions is chaining in which buckets (either immediately or some spaces) next to occupied values are used.
Describe a situation where a hash table wouldn't be as useful as a binary search tree	Hash tables are not good for recalling sorted values!
What is one thing that is more clear to you on hash tables now	After this lesson, I have a much clearer understanding of the structure of a hash table from when we first covered hash tables.

[CheezItMan]

Well done, you got this one. Well done.

[CheezItMan]

Not quite, remember the best sorts are O(m log m). You can make the argument that if the words are small, then the time complexity is O(n) where n is the number of words.

If the words are potentially long, then it could be O(n * m log m) where n is the number of words and m is the length of each word.