Chapter 10

Maps, Hash Tables, and Skip Lists

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Contents

10.1 Maps and Dictionaries

Python's dict class is arguably the most significant data structure in the language. It represents an abstraction known as a dictionary in which unique keys are mapped to associated values. Because of the relationship they express between keys and values, dictionaries are commonly known as associative arrays or maps. In this book, we use the term dictionary when specifically discussing Python's dict class, and the term map when discussing the more general notion of the abstract ...

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