Hash Keys, Indices, and Collisions

As mentioned in the introduction, this book is primarily about implementing hash tables and not hash functions. So, to simplify the exposition, I initially assume that the data values you store in tables are simply hash keys. Chapter 5 addresses the changes you have to make to store application data together with keys, but for most of the theory of hash tables, you only need to consider hash keys. Everywhere else, you will view additional data as black box data and just store their keys.