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#9 most askedVery commonMediumComplexity

How does a hash table work?

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Explain how a hash table (Python dict, JS Map) gives O(1) average lookups, and what happens on collisions.

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    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])
    
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