CareerCup

Names cannot be unique. So in the absence of another unique identifier (such as SSN or biometric data) it is not possible to avert hash collisions.

i have used the following method for storing names in a hash if names are like this...siva12..rama13.etc..not sure if this is sufficient for pure names(strings)..of course not

int hash_name(char *str) {


int n=0;
int index = 0;
int ch = 0;

while(*str++) {

ch = *str & 0xFF;

if (ch >= 0 && ch <= 9) {
n = (n * 10) + ( ch -'0');
else
c = c ^ ch;

}


index= ((c ^ n) & 0xFF ) % HASHMASK;

return index;

}

Assuming unique names, simplest solution which works well is

int hashCode()
{
   int sum=name[0];
   for(int i=1;i<name.length;i++)
   {
      sum+=name[i]*(1<<i);
   }

   return sum;

}

the key means the input of hash function?

Decompose in base 26

If you assure that the Names are unique i.e then you can use trie tree and store the data in the nodes.

use sufix tree... and for the collision use link list ..