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HashMap Use Case

The document outlines three key use cases for hash maps in coding interviews: Pair Sum Problems, Duplicate Detection, and Counting. It explains how hash maps improve efficiency by allowing O(1) time complexity for lookups compared to O(n) for arrays. Each use case includes practical interview strategies for implementation.

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Rishu
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25 views5 pages

HashMap Use Case

The document outlines three key use cases for hash maps in coding interviews: Pair Sum Problems, Duplicate Detection, and Counting. It explains how hash maps improve efficiency by allowing O(1) time complexity for lookups compared to O(n) for arrays. Each use case includes practical interview strategies for implementation.

Uploaded by

Rishu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

coding interview Tips: Applications

Top 3 Hash
map use
cases in
coding
interviews
Keys Hash Function Values

Find more interview tips ->


[Link]
Pair Sum Problems
In these kind of problems, we can use a hashmap to check if the
difference of a target and a number exists in an input list in O(1)
time.

This is an improvement over using an array, which would take us


O(n) time.

In an interview:
Use the value as the key and map it to its index. Loop over the list
and check if our map contains the difference we are looking for.

Find more
interview tips ->
[Link]
Duplicate Detection
Hash maps/sets are useful for detecting duplicates because of their
fast O(1) lookup. Using an array, this could potentially be O(n) time.

This is particularly useful in graph problems when we want to


avoid revisiting vertices.

In an interview:
At each iteration, check if the current element is already in our hash
map/set. If not, add, and move to the next iteration.

Find more
interview tips ->
[Link]
Counting
We can use the element as the key and map it to its frequency.

This is useful in problems where we have to check if we have


“enough” of something or problems where occurrences play a role
like anagrams or counting wins and losses.

In an interview:
Map each element (key) to its frequency (value), where the

frequency is initially set to 0. If we encounter a key again, we retrieve


its value and increment it by 1.

Find more
interview tips ->
[Link]
What’s another way
you’ve used a
hashmap?

[Link]

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