In most programming languages, dictionaries are preferred over hashtables. What are the reasons behind that?
In most programming languages, dictionaries are preferred over hashtables. What are the reasons behind
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In most programming languages, dictionaries are preferred over hashtables. What are the reasons behind that?
For what it’s worth, a Dictionary is (conceptually) a hash table.
If you meant ‘why do we use the
Dictionary<TKey, TValue>class instead of theHashtableclass?’, then it’s an easy answer:Dictionary<TKey, TValue>is a generic type,Hashtableis not. That means you get type safety withDictionary<TKey, TValue>, because you can’t insert any random object into it, and you don’t have to cast the values you take out.Interestingly, the
Dictionary<TKey, TValue>implementation in the .NET Framework is based on theHashtable, as you can tell from this comment in its source code:Source