> incremental insert vs two pass Insert each element in its sorted position. It will only degenerate if there are many more inserts than lookups, in which case

> incremental insert vs two pass Insert each element in its sorted position. It will only degenerate if there are many more inserts than lookups, in which case a hash table would do nothing for you. This could also be a good case for a radix structure. > void* hash table I would stay far from poor implementations of high level languages. Why use C if you want generics? A reusable hash table can be implemented by implementing open addressing with 64 bit integer keys. Then if you have a fancy type you write a hash function and perform linked list chaining on the values. Another way is to treat the keys as byte arrays. > seemed the most intuitive way for the 2nd part. Intuition is a kind of familiarity. There is no reason to learn C if you just write the techniques you already know in a less safe and more verbose way. You instead should be learning a new way to think about problems.