C# : Explain Hashtable in C#

A Hashtable is a collection that stores (Keys, Values) pairs. Here, the Keys are used to find the storage location and is immutable and cannot have duplicate entries in the Hashtable. The .Net Framework has provided a Hash Table class that contains all the functionality required to implement a hash table without any additional development. The hash table is a general-purpose dictionary collection. Each item within the collection is a DictionaryEntry object with two properties: a key object and a value object. These are known as Key/Value. When items are added to a hash table, a hash code is generated automatically. This code is hidden from the developer. All access to the table's values is achieved using the key object for identification. As the items in the collection are sorted according to the hidden hash code, the items should be considered to be randomly ordered.

The Hashtable Collection

The Base Class libraries offers a Hashtable Class that is defined in the System.Collections namespace, so you don't have to code your own hash tables. It processes each key of the hash that you add every time and then uses the hash code to look up the element very quickly. The capacity of a hash table is the number of elements the hash table can hold. As elements are added to a hash table, the capacity is automatically increased as required through reallocation. It is an older .Net Framework type.

Declaring a Hashtable

The Hashtable class is generally found in the namespace called System.Collections. So to execute any of the examples, we have to add using System.Collections; to the source code. The declaration for the Hashtable is: 

1. Hashtable HT = new Hashtable ();