Data Structures

Hash Tables

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 What are Tables?
• Table is an abstract storage device that contains table
entries

• Each table entry contains a unique key k.

• Each table entry may also contain some information, I,

associated with its key.

• A table entry is an ordered pair (K, I)

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 Direct Addressing

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 8

Direct Addressing
T Key

0 NULL
1
2 NULL
…. ……..
Universe of Keys
23
0 - 99
….. …….
1 23 45 67
44 87 6 45
46 NULL
…. …….
…. …….

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 Tables: rows & columns of
information
• A table has several fields (types of information)
– A telephone book may have fields name, address, phone number
– A user account table may have fields user id, password, home folder
• To find an entry in the table, you only need know the contents of one of the
fields (not all of them). This field is the key
– In a telephone book, the key is usually name
– In a user account table, the key is usually user id
• Ideally, a key uniquely identifies an entry
– If the key is name and no two entries in the telephone book have the same
name, the key uniquely identifies the entries

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 The Table ADT: operations
• insert: given a key and an entry, inserts the entry into
the table
• find: given a key, finds the entry associated with the
key
• remove: given a key, finds the entry associated with
the key, and removes it

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 TableNode: a key and its entry
• For searching purposes, it is best to store the key and
the entry separately (even though the key’s value may
be inside the entry)
key entry
“Smith” “Smith”, “124 Hawkers Lane”, “9675846”
TableNode
“Yeo” “Yeo”, “1 Apple Crescent”, “0044 1970 622455”

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 Advantages with Direct Addressing
• Direct Addressing is the most efficient way to access the
data since.

• It takes only single step for any operation on direct

address table.

• It works well when the Universe U of keys is reasonable

small.

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Difficulty with Direct Addressing
When the universe U is very large…

• Storing a table T of size U may be impractical, given the

memory available on a typical computer.

• The set K of the keys actually stored may be so small

relative to U that most of the space allocated for T would be
wasted.

• Even if memory is not an issue, the time to initialize the

elements to NULL may also be greater

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 An ideal table needed!

• The table should be of small fixed size.

• Any key in the universe should be able to be mapped in

the slot into table, using some mapping function

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 Hash Tables
• Definition: the ideal table data structure is merely an
array of some fixed size, containing the elements.

• Consists of an array and a mapping function (known

as hash function). A hash table is an array of size Tsize
– has index positions 0 .. Tsize-1

• Used for performing insertion, deletion and lookup in

constant time (on average).

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 What is a Hash function?
• A hash function is a mapping between a set of input
values (Keys) and a set of integers, known as hash
values.

Hash
function

Keys Hash values

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 Hash Table: A Simple Example
Define Hash Function as T

H(k) = k%10 = 0
1 0
9 0%
9 0)=
h (
Universe of Keys
90 - 99
h(95) = 5
90 95
92 98
96

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 Implementation:hashing
• An array in which TableNodes are
not stored consecutively - their key entry
place of storage is calculated using
the key and a hash function
4

hash array
Key index
function 10

• Hashed key: the result of applying a

hash function to a key
• Keys and entries are scattered 123
throughout the array

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 Hash Table Collisions
• when two or more keys hash to the same slot
– Can happen when there are more possible keys than slots (|
U| > m).
– For a given set K of keys with |K| ≤ m, may or may not
happen.
– Definitely happens if |K| > m.
– Therefore, must be prepared to handle collisions in all
cases

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 Hash Table Collisions

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 Hash Table Collisions
T

= 0
10
0 %
=9
(9 0)
h
Universe of Keys
0 - 99
h(95) = 5
90 95
92 98
85 h(85) = 5

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 Resolving Collisions
• How can we solve the problem of collisions?

– Solution 1: Chaining
– Solution 2: Open addressing

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 Chaining
• Put all the elements that hash to same slot in a linked
list.

• Worst case : All n keys hash to the same slot resulting

in a linked list of length n, running time:

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 Chaining

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 Chaining
Define Hash Function as
T
H(k) = k%10
= 0
10
0 %
=9
(9 0)
h
Universe of Keys
0 - 99
h(95) = 5
90 95
92 98
85 h(85) = 5

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 Open addressing

• Another approach for collision resolution.

• All elements are stored in the hash table itself (so

no pointers involved as in chaining).

• To insert: if slot is full, try another slot, and

another, until an open slot is found (probing)

• To search, follow same sequence of probes as

would be used when inserting the element

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 Open addressing: Collisions
• Linear Probing
– Whenever there is a collision, one strategy is to look for the
next unused slot and use it.

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 Open addressing: Collisions
When searching for an empty slot, one has to remember to
wrap around (like a circular array)

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 Open addressing: Insertion
HASH_INSERT(T,k)
1 i0
2 repeat j  h(k,i)
3 if T[j] = NIL
4 then T[j] = k
5 return j
6 else i  i +1
7 until i = m
8 error “ hash table overflow”

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 Open addressing: Search
• To retrieve an item the hash function will be
performed and starting at that location the key will be
searched for until an empty slot is reached.

• If an empty slot was reached and the key wasn’t

found then the item isn’t in the table.

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 Open addressing: Search
HASH_SEARCH(T,k)
1 i0
2 repeat j  h(k,i)
3 if T[j] = k
4 then return j
5 i  i +1
6 until T[j] = NIL or i = m
7 return NIL

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 Deletion
• Algorithm assumes that keys are not deleted once they
are inserted
• Deleting a key from an open addressing table is
difficult, instead we can mark them in the table as
removed (introduced a new class of entries, full, empty
and removed)
• Need special placeholder deleted, to distinguish slot
that was never used from one that once held a value
• May need to reorganize table after many deletions

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 Hash Function
• Maps keys to positions in the Hash Table.
• Be easy to calculate.
• Use all of the key.
• Spread the keys uniformly.
• Should not depend on patterns in the data

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 Nature of keys
 Most hash functions assume that universe of keys is the
set N = {0, 1, 2,…} of natural numbers
 If keys are not N, ways to be found to interpret them as
N
 A character key can be interpreted as an integer
expressed in suitable Radix notation.

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 – Example:
Radix Notation
– Interpret a character string as an integer expressed in some radix
notation. Suppose the string is CLRS:

• ASCII values: C = 67, L = 76, R = 82, S = 83.

• There are 128 basic ASCII values.
• So interpret CLRS as
• (67 · 128³)+ (76 · 128²)+ (82 · 128¹)+ (83 · 128º)
• = 141,764,947.

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