#9 most askedVery commonMediumComplexity
How does a hash table work?
New to Complexity? Learn it from scratch firstBig-O in Plain English โ
๐ข Asked in real interviews
No reports yet. Were you asked this? Be the first to say where.Explain how a hash table (Python dict, JS Map) gives O(1) average lookups, and what happens on collisions.
๐ค Answer it out loud, then check yourself
Say your answer as if the interviewer is listening (30โ90 seconds). Then reveal what a strong answer covers and tick what you said.
class TinyHashMap:
def __init__(self, size=4):
self.buckets = [[] for _ in range(size)]
def put(self, key, value):
bucket = self.buckets[hash(key) % len(self.buckets)]
for pair in bucket:
if pair[0] == key:
pair[1] = value
return
bucket.append([key, value])
def get(self, key):
for k, v in self.buckets[hash(key) % len(self.buckets)]:
if k == key:
return v
m = TinyHashMap()
for i, word in enumerate(["ada", "bo", "cy", "dev", "eli"]):
m.put(word, i)
print(m.get("dev"), [len(b) for b in m.buckets])
Answer out loud first, then compare.
Want to rehearse it?Answer this to the AI interviewer and get a verdict โ