Data Structures

  1. We will see how the operating system uses this advantage when we discuss, for example, hashed page tables as part of the "Memory Management" topic and directory hash tables in "File Management".

A hash map: an array-like structure consisting of cells. Each cell is numbered with an integer: 0, 1, 2, etc., up to some interger 'n'. A user would take a data piece called 'key' (a string of text, number, or anything else), and input it into a hash function. The hash function will return a number as a result, and this number is then fed into the hash map. The value in the cell of the hash map with that index is called the 'value', and is the desired data or item that we have been looking for.

A hash map. Taken from Bell, John T. "Operating-System Structures." University of Illinois, Chicago.

These notes by Miriam Briskman are licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0 and based on sources.