Patent ID: 7571299

Claim:
A method of inserting values in a hash table stored in electronic memory, the method comprising: determining a first address of a first entry of the hash table for a value for insertion, wherein the hash table is configured to store at most one value in each entry; generating a plurality of addresses of further entries of the hash table in response to determining that a stored value is stored in the first entry, the generating based upon the first address, wherein generating each of the plurality of addresses comprises: selecting a position of a bit of the first address; and changing the bit; inserting the value for insertion in one of the further entries, wherein an address of the one of the further entries of the hash table differs from the first address by one bit, wherein the position of the one bit in the first address is one of the selected positions; and inserting into a link field of the first entry a value representing a position of the bit.