hash tables

[Mcody2]

today in class my teacher talked about hash tables I had no idea what he was talking about so could someone please explain to me what a hash table is or were to find easy to understand information on hash tables an example use of a hash table would be appreciated

thanks

[destin]

Perhaps this link will help you.

[mel_akey]

Just wondering what class you were in? Did you feel like you couldn't just ask the teacher (I know that can be intimidating)... but you are probably not the only person in the class lost on the topic... and it could therefore help others.
Anyway...
Definition of Hashtable: In computer science, a hash table is an associative array data structure that associates keys with values. The primary operation it supports efficiently is a lookup, where it is given a key, an identifier for the information to be found such as a person's name, and asked to find the corresponding value. It works by transforming the key using a hash function into a hash, a number that the hash table uses to locate the desired value.
You can get more info from here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashtable