Beginning Java Data Structures and Algorithms

Dealing with Collisions with Open Addressing

In the previous section, we saw how we can deal with collisions using linked lists at each array position. A chained hash table will keep on growing without any load limit. Open addressing is just another way of tackling hash collisions. In open addressing, all items are stored in the array itself, making the structure static with a maximum load factor limit of 1. This means that once the array is full, you can't add any more items. The advantage of using open addressing is that, since you're not using linked lists, you're saving a bit of memory since you don't have to store any pointer references.

You can then use this extra memory to have an even larger array and hold more of your key value pairs. ...