Algorithms For Dummies

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  PART 2 

 Understanding the Need to Sort and Search

attractive to developers. The fact is that no perfect search strategy exists, but the 

exploration for such a method continues.

The  final  section  of  the  chapter  looks  at  hashing  and  dictionaries.  The  use  of 

indexing  makes  sorting  and  searching  significantly  faster  but  also  comes  with 

trade-offs that you need to consider (such as the use of additional resources). An 

index is a kind of pointer or an address. It’s not the data, but it points to the data, 

much as your address points to your home. A block-by-block manual search for 

your home in the city would be time consuming because the person looking for 

you would need to ask each person at each address whether you’re there, but find-

ing your address in the phone book and then using that address to locate your 

home is much faster.