Hashing Questions
The main difference between a hash table and a bloom filter lies in their respective purposes and functionalities.
A hash table, also known as a hash map, is a data structure that allows efficient storage and retrieval of key-value pairs. It uses a hash function to map keys to specific locations in an array, known as buckets or slots. This enables fast access to values based on their associated keys. Hash tables provide constant-time average case complexity for insertion, deletion, and retrieval operations.
On the other hand, a bloom filter is a probabilistic data structure used to test whether an element is a member of a set. It uses multiple hash functions to map elements to a bit array, where each bit represents a position in the array. When inserting an element, the corresponding bits are set to 1. To check if an element is in the set, the same hash functions are applied, and if any of the corresponding bits are 0, the element is definitely not in the set. However, if all bits are 1, the element is probably in the set, but there is a chance of false positives.
In summary, a hash table is a general-purpose data structure for efficient key-value storage and retrieval, while a bloom filter is a specialized data structure for membership testing with a trade-off of possible false positives.