Efficient implementation of error correction codes in hash tables

•ECCs can be used as efficient hash functions.•The use of ECCs as hash functions reduces the cost of error correction in hash tables.•The scheme has been validated with a practical case study.•Further optimizations of the ECC are enabled by the scheme. Hash tables are one of the most commonly used data structures in computing applications. They are used for example to organize a data set such that searches can be performed efficiently. The data stored in a hash table is commonly stored in memory and can suffer errors. To ensure that data stored in a memory is not corrupted when it suffers errors, Error Correction Codes (ECCs) are commonly used. In this research note a scheme to efficiently implement ECCs for the entries stored in hash tables is presented. The main idea is to use an ECC as the hash function that is used to construct the table. This eliminates the need to store the parity bits for the entries in the memory as they are implicit in the hash table construction thus reducing the implementation cost.