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Subject: Re: Hashtables: is larger always better?

Author: Sune Fischer

Date: 03:52:32 09/26/01

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On September 25, 2001 at 23:57:33, Robert Hyatt wrote:

>On September 25, 2001 at 11:33:51, Antonio Dieguez wrote:

>>>Note that I don't sign on to the theory that more ram increases the probability
>>>of a collision.
>>
>>Try it yourself, then. With different hashtable sizes.
>>
>>this is what I got in the initial position, with 16 bits total. With replacing
>>scheme always replace.
>>
>>with 128 entries:
>>[9] 978059 nodes, illegal moves=2416
>>
>>with 256:
>>[9] 909888 nodes, illegal moves=3113
>>
>>512:
>>[9] 944380 nodes, illegal moves=5450
>>
>>1024:
>>[9] 847469 nodes, illegal moves=9062
>>
>>2048:
>>[9] 915317 nodes, illegal moves=15875
>>
>>4096:
>>[9] 1183890 nodes, illegal moves=38123
>>
>>I think it will be obviously the same trying others positions too.

What a beautiful experiment Antonio;)

>But what if you use a 64 bit key, with absolutely no hope of searching
>1/4,000,000,000th of that search space?  How many collisions then?  And
>if you increase the hash size, how many collisions then?

He would get the same result: double hash -> double number of collisions.
Of couse the actual count would be zero unless it ran for a very long time.

>I don't think the experiment is framed correctly to answer the question that
>is being asked:  "With today's hardware, and 64 bit hashing, is a bigger hash
>table always better?"  The answer is still yes, IMHO.

Yes, I agree completely, but this thread sort of turned into a discussion of
whether or not doubling the hash size would also double the probability of a
collision.
It's the apples and oranges again, we agree on the apples, it was the orange
debate that was interesting ;)

-S.



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