Question

I don’t know why this code is not breaking out of the while loop:

int table_size = 953;
store hash_table[953];
for(int i = 0; i < table_size; i++)
    hash_table[i].count = 0;

//bunch of stuff to get hash value here

while(hash_table[hashNum].data != pString || hash_table[hashNum].count != 0){
    hashNum++;
    if(hashNum > table_size)
        hashNum = 0;
    cout << hash_table[hashNum].count; 
    // to check the value of the count in the array, it IS 0, thus should have broken the loop
}

Answer 1

you probably mean:

while(hash_table[hashNum].data != pString && hash_table[hashNum].count != 0)

In your code the loop will continue if either case is true, hash_table[hashNum].count == 0 is NOT sufficient to make the clause false.