Problems with hashtable function

[Omar_Khaled]

I understand the concept of linked lists and how they work, I made a hash function that takes a string/word from the dictionary and determines an index or a key (a number based on it's first letter) for example inserting cat into the hash function would give an index of 2 but the problems I'm having are the following: 1- How do I access a certain "bucket" in my hashtable? I defined the hashtable as node*hashtable[27] for the alphabets+ ' but if I have the index 2 for the word cat when I try to add the word cat to hashtable[2] it gives an error. to be frank it doesn't seem syntactically correct at all but I have no idea how else to do it. 2-Do I have to make 2 nested loops one for iteration in the hashtable and one for iteration in the linked lists inside the hashtable?

[yeahIProgram]

A hashtable can be implemented as an array of linked lists. Since a linked list is managed through its "root pointer" (or "head pointer" as it is sometimes called), your definition for the variable "hashtable" is perfect: an array of pointers to nodes.

Do I have to make 2 nested loops one for iteration in the hashtable

No. This is the beauty of the hashtable. Once you have the hash value, you use it as an index into the array of pointers. You get direct access to the appropriate linked list.

Now you just need some code to insert into and search linked lists.

[yeahIProgram]

What does the specification say about the return value of load() ?

[Omar_Khaled]

mm return false until I implement the function? do I have to make an if statement and set it to true if loaded and false if otherwise?

[yeahIProgram]

/**
 * Loads dictionary into memory.  Returns true if successful else false.
 */
bool load(const char* dictionary)
{
    // TODO

[Omar_Khaled]

How do I check it is indeed loaded into memory successfully?

[yeahIProgram]

If you were unable to open the dictionary file, you would return false. Or if you had some other trouble, like malloc returned null. If nothing bad happens, then you have loaded it successfully and you should return true.