In khalid Mughal page 511, hashcode() method is given in detail. I have nor understood certain questions:
What will happen if unequal objects will hash to same bucket ? (page 513)
I know that equal objects should hash to same bucket in the hash table, it enables yielding correct answer on searching that object. But where is the prob if unequal objects will hash to same buckets??? Does it mean that in a bucket only equal objects should be placed???
Assuming ,to deal with hash collision a linked lists is maintained at every array index.
Well unequal objects can land in the same hash bucket. there is no problem in that. The problem arises when equal objects land in different hash buckets. This happens if a class overrides the equals method but not the hashCode method...
carox kaur wrote:But where is the prob if unequal objects will hash to same buckets???
The only "problem" is performance. A hash map / set would have to look through more items to find the truly equal object. Other than that, no problem. In fact, it is perfectly legal to return a constant (like 42) as the hash code - but then your hash map / set turns into a linked list instead.
