# jamesroutley/write-a-hash-table

✏️ Learn how to write a hash table in C

Repository: https://github.com/jamesroutley/write-a-hash-table
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/write-a-hash-table
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: hash-tables, tutorial, c, data-structures
Last push: 2023-12-16T14:30:33+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 23/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3316, "days_push": 991, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 4378, forks 331 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:46.921888+00:00)

## What it is
A step-by-step tutorial teaching how to implement an open-addressed, double-hashed hash table in C in about 200 lines of code. It is an educational resource rather than a production library.

## Use cases
- learn how hash tables work under the hood
- implement a hash table from scratch in C
- understand open addressing and double hashing
- study collision handling and table resizing
- practice C programming with data structures

## When to choose
- you want to learn data structure internals through hands-on coding
- you are comfortable with C basics and want a short guided project
- you need to understand when and why hash tables fail

## When to avoid
- you need a production-ready hash table for real applications
- you want a battle-tested data structures library
- you don't know any C and want a language-agnostic tutorial

## Facets
- artifact type: learning-resource
- maturity: stable
- function: developer-tools
- domain: tutorials, developer-tools
- platform: cross-platform
- tags: hash-table, data-structures, c, tutorial, educational, algorithms

## Member repositories
- jamesroutley/write-a-hash-table (main) score 23

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:46.921888+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:21:18.998418+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/jamesroutley/write-a-hash-table (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:46.921888+00:00, sha 37b482662dd3)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.