What are characteristics of a hashed internal table?

A hashed internal table is designed for efficient data access and retrieval, particularly when it comes to key-based operations. One of its defining characteristics is that it must have a unique key. This ensures that any entry in the hashed internal table can be uniquely identified and accessed, which is essential for maintaining data integrity and efficient searching.

In this structure, when you insert data, the unique key is used to compute a hash value, allowing for optimal performance when accessing entries based on the key. Because each key must be unique, it prevents duplicates in the hashed internal table, ensuring that each entry is distinct and can be retrieved or modified accurately.

This uniqueness is critical because, unlike sorted or standard internal tables, where you might have multiple entries associated with the same key or index, hashed internal tables rely on having a one-to-one correspondence between the key and the data entries. Therefore, any operations, such as searching for or modifying an entry, are streamlined due to the guaranteed uniqueness of the keys, leading to faster performance in accessing the data compared to other table types.

Additionally, while other options may describe potential characteristics of different types of internal tables, they do not accurately apply to hashed internal tables in the way that the requirement for a unique key does. This