I am implementing a pearson hash in order to create a lightweight dictionary structure for a C project which requires a table of files names paired with file data - I want the nice constant search property of hash tables. I'm no math expert so I looked up good text hashes and pearson came up, with it being claimed to be effective and having a good distribution. I tested my implementation and found that no matter how I vary the table size or the filename max length, the hash is very inefficient, with for example 18/50 buckets being left empty. I trust wikipedia to not be lying, and yes I am aware I can just download a third party hash table implementation, but I would dearly like to know why my version isn't working.
In the following code, (a function to insert values into the table), "csString" is the filename, the string to be hashed, "cLen" is the length of the string, "pData" is a pointer to some data which is inserted into the table, and "pTable" is the table struct. The initial condition cHash = cLen - csString[0] is somethin I experimentally found to marginally improve uniformity. I should add that I am testing the table with entirely randomised strings (using rand() to generate ascii values) with randomised length between a certain range - this is in order to easily generate and test large amounts of values.
typedef struct StaticStrTable {
unsigned int nRepeats;
unsigned char nBuckets;
unsigned char nMaxCollisions;
void** pBuckets;
} StaticStrTable;
static const char cPerm256[256] = {
227, 117, 238, 33, 25, 165, 107, 226, 132, 88, 84, 68, 217, 237, 228, 58, 52, 147, 46, 197, 191, 119, 211, 0, 218, 139, 196, 153, 170, 77, 175, 22, 193, 83, 66, 182, 151, 99, 11, 144, 104, 233, 166, 34, 177, 14, 194, 51, 30, 121, 102, 49,
222, 210, 199, 122, 235, 72, 13, 156, 38, 145, 137, 78, 65, 176, 94, 163, 95, 59, 92, 114, 243, 204, 224, 43, 185, 168, 244, 203, 28, 124, 248, 105, 10, 87, 115, 161, 138, 223, 108, 192, 6, 186, 101, 16, 39, 134, 123, 200, 190, 195, 178,
164, 9, 251, 245, 73, 162, 71, 7, 239, 62, 69, 209, 159, 3, 45, 247, 19, 174, 149, 61, 57, 146, 234, 189, 15, 202, 89, 111, 207, 31, 127, 215, 198, 231, 4, 181, 154, 64, 125, 24, 93, 152, 37, 116, 160, 113, 169, 255, 44, 36, 70, 225, 79,
250, 12, 229, 230, 76, 167, 118, 232, 142, 212, 98, 82, 252, 130, 23, 29, 236, 86, 240, 32, 90, 67, 126, 8, 133, 85, 20, 63, 47, 150, 135, 100, 103, 173, 184, 48, 143, 42, 54, 129, 242, 18, 187, 106, 254, 53, 120, 205, 155, 216, 219, 172,
21, 253, 5, 221, 40, 27, 2, 179, 74, 17, 55, 183, 56, 50, 110, 201, 109, 249, 128, 112, 75, 220, 214, 140, 246, 213, 136, 148, 97, 35, 241, 60, 188, 180, 206, 80, 91, 96, 157, 81, 171, 141, 131, 158, 1, 208, 26, 41
};
void InsertStaticStrTable(char* csString, unsigned char cLen, void* pData, StaticStrTable* pTable) {
unsigned char cHash = cLen - csString[0];
for (int i = 0; i < cLen; ++i) cHash ^= cPerm256[cHash ^ csString[i]];
unsigned short cTableIndex = cHash % pTable->nBuckets;
long long* pBucket = pTable->pBuckets[cTableIndex];
// Inserts data and records how many collisions there are - it may look weird as the way in which I decided to pack the data into the table buffer is very compact and arbitrary
// It won't affect the hash though, which is the key issue!
for (int i = 0; i < pTable->nMaxCollisions; ++i) {
if (i == 1) {
pTable->nRepeats++;
}
long long* pSlotID = pBucket + (i << 1);
if (pSlotID[0] == 0) {
pSlotID[0] = csString;
pSlotID[1] = pData;
break;
}
}
}
FYI (This is not an answer, I just need the formatting) These are just single runs from a simulation, YMMV.
distributing 50 elements randomly over 50 bins:
kalender_size=50 nperson = 50
E/cell| Ncell | frac | Nelem | frac |h/cell| hops | Cumhops
----+---------+--------+----------+--------+------+--------+--------
0: 18 (0.360000) 0 (0.000000) 0 0 0
1: 18 (0.360000) 18 (0.360000) 1 18 18
2: 10 (0.200000) 20 (0.400000) 3 30 48
3: 4 (0.080000) 12 (0.240000) 6 24 72
----+---------+--------+----------+--------+------+--------+--------
4: 50 50 1.440000 72
Similarly: distribute 365 persons over a birthday-calendar (ignoring leap days ...):
kalender_size=356 nperson = 356
E/cell| Ncell | frac | Nelem | frac |h/cell| hops | Cumhops
----+---------+--------+----------+--------+------+--------+--------
0: 129 (0.362360) 0 (0.000000) 0 0 0
1: 132 (0.370787) 132 (0.370787) 1 132 132
2: 69 (0.193820) 138 (0.387640) 3 207 339
3: 19 (0.053371) 57 (0.160112) 6 114 453
4: 6 (0.016854) 24 (0.067416) 10 60 513
5: 1 (0.002809) 5 (0.014045) 15 15 528
----+---------+--------+----------+--------+------+--------+--------
6: 356 356 1.483146 528
For N items over N slots, the expectation for the number of empty slots and the number of slots with a single item in them is equal. The expected density is 1/e for both.
The final number (1.483146) is the number of ->next pointer traversels per found element (when using a chained hash table) Any optimal hash function will almost reach 1.5.