I'm not sure I've captured all of the comments here, but here's my suggestion: Use the value at the hash collision to get the offset for the next hash key. If the hash value is 0 mod $PRIME, use half the prime as an offset, to avoid clustering. In Perl, if you will: 

my %hash; # hash of stored values
my $PRIME = some_large_prime(); # random or fixed, your choice
my $PRIME_HALF = int($PRIME/2); # or some other known value or functio
+n
...
my $i = $initial_index; # wherever you get this from
my $failed_tries = $PRIME;
while (defined($hash{$i}) and $failed_tries--) {
    my $offset = $hash{$i} % $PRIME;
    $offset = $PRIME_HALF if ($offset == 0);
    $i = ($i + ($hash{$i}) % $PRIME;
}

if ($failed_tries) {
    $hash{$i} = $value;
} else { 
    warn "Hash full\n";
}

[download]

Update: I'm assuming that the hash values, once written, are read only, and never change.

-QM
--
Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of

In reply to Re: RFC: Is there a solution to the flaw in my hash mechanism? (And are there any others?) by QM
in thread RFC: Is there a solution to the flaw in my hash mechanism? (And are there any others?) by BrowserUk

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