# What is complexity of Hash Table?

Technology CommunityCategory: Data StructuresWhat is complexity of Hash Table?
VietMX Staff asked 5 months ago

Hash tables are O(1) average and amortized time complexity case complexity, however it suffers from O(n) worst case time complexity (when you have only one bucket in the hash table, then the search complexity is O(n)). A hashtable typically has a space complexity of O(n).

Hash tables suffer from O(n) worst time complexity due to two reasons:

1. If too many elements were hashed into the same key: looking inside this key may take O(n) time (for linked lists)
2. Once a hash table has passed its load balance – it has to rehash (create a new bigger table, and re-insert each element to the table).

However, it is said to be O(1) average and amortized case because:

1. It is very rare that many items will be hashed to the same key if you chose a good hash function and you don’t have too big load balance.
2. The rehash operation, which is O(n), can at most happen after n/2 ops, which are all assumed O(1): Thus when you sum the average time per op, you get : (n*O(1) + O(n)) / n) = O(1)