Question

How does HashMap handle collisions in Java?

Answer 1

• The java.util.HashMap class in Java uses the approach of chaining to handle collisions. In chaining, if the new values with the same key are attempted to be pushed, then these values are stored in a linked list stored in a bucket of the key as a chain along with the existing value.
• In the worst-case scenario, it can happen that all keys might have the same hashcode, which will result in the hash table turning into a linked list. In this case, searching a value will take O(n) complexity as opposed to O(1) time due to the nature of the linked list. Hence, care has to be taken while selecting hashing algorithm.