c# - What happens when hash collision happens in Dictionary key?

Question

I've been coding in c++ and java entirety of my life but on C#, I feel like it's a totally different animal.

In case of hash collision in Dictionary container in c#, what does it do? or does it even detect the collision?

In case of collisions in similar containers in SDL, some would make a key value section link data to key value section like linked list, or some would attempt to find different hash method.

[Update 10:56 A.M. 6/4/2010]

I am trying to make a counter per user. And set user # is not defined, it can both increase or decrease. And I'm expecting the size of data to be over 1000.

So, I want :

• fast Access preferably not O(n), It important that I have close to O(1) due to requirement, I need to make sure I can force log off people before they are able to execute something silly.
• Dynamic growth and shrink.
• unique data.

Hashmap was my solution, and it seems Dictionary is what is similar to hashmap in c#...

Answer 1

Hash collisions are correctly handled by Dictionary<> - in that so long as an object implements GetHashCode() and Equals() correctly, the appropriate instance will be returned from the dictionary.

First, you shouldn't make any assumptions about how Dictionary<> works internally - that's an implementation detail that is likely to change over time. Having said that....

What you should be concerned with is whether the types you are using for keys implement GetHashCode() and Equals() correctly. The basic rules are that GetHashCode() must return the same value for the lifetime of the object, and that Equals() must return true when two instances represent the same object. Unless you override it, Equals() uses reference equality - which means it only returns true if two objects are actually the same instance. You may override how Equals() works, but then you must ensure that two objects that are 'equal' also produce the same hash code.

From a performance standpoint, you may also want to provide an implementation of GetHashCode() that generates a good spread of values to reduce the frequency of hashcode collision. The primarily downside of hashcode collisions, is that it reduces the dictionary into a list in terms of performance. Whenever two different object instances yield the same hash code, they are stored in the same internal bucket of the dictionary. The result of this, is that a linear scan must be performed, calling Equals() on each instance until a match is found.