Universal Hashing Summary

Like using random pivots in quicksort, the idea is that we'll pick a random hash function from a family of hash functions.

If the family has a particular ``universal'' property (not difficult to have), we can prove a true expected running time for worst-case inputs.

The critical property is that any pair of keys collides in just 1/m of the possible hash functions.

Not always useful in practice, because often we use our hash table only once (and the randomization, in this case, only occurs once per use).

Still, gives us a warm, fuzzy feeling.


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