Hi, well i know it is probably not the best title but... So what I have been trying to build is a data structure, a table from which i could retrieve the information very fast given a certain key is provided. A first thing that popped into my mind when I saw the problem was a hash table. But my data is very peculiar. Example: 
23-45  12
11-17  2
45-134 23
10-10  65
1-1    45
19-20  10
...

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so it is a table of intervals associated with some numbers. Intervals cannot overlap (Thank U G) but some intervals can remain empty like 18-18 or 21-22. the interval range is form 1 to 1000000000. associated values are from 1 to 5000000. the thing is when i am retrieving associated numbers I have to be able to make a query of the type:

"Q: What is the value associated with 50?"
"A: It is 23."

Is it clear what I am trying to get? Now, I could create a hash table for all possible values from 45 to 134 and associate each key to 23 and get the job done, but this seam like too memory wasteful. And since this looks like a trivial task I guess somebody already solved it efficiently and I can only be grateful if she/he is willing to share the knowledge :)

thank you

baxy

In reply to hashing intervals by baxy77bax

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