Learn C the Hard Way: A Clear & Direct Introduction To Modern C Programming

Exercise 37. Hashmaps

Hash maps (hashmaps, hashes, or sometimes dictionaries) are used frequently in dynamic programming for storing key/value data. A hashmap works by performing a hashing calculation on the keys to produce an integer, then uses that integer to find a bucket to get or set the value. It’s a very fast, practical data structure because it works on nearly any data and is easy to implement.

Here’s an example of using a hashmap (aka, dictionary) in Python:

ex37.py

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fruit_weights = {'Apples': 10, 'Oranges': 100, 'Grapes': 1.0} for key, value in fruit_weights.items():     print key, "=", value

Almost every modern language has something like this, so many people end up writing code and never understand how ...