> Is this a reflection of the sad state of C library packaging? No, it is a sad state of the ability of C to encapsulate things. You cannot define vector<T> in

> Is this a reflection of the sad state of C library packaging? No, it is a sad state of the ability of C to encapsulate things. You cannot define vector<T> in C. Using some macros you probably can devise a way to get an implementation of a dynamic array for your type of an element, but... macros... And in any case it probably will be ugly. If you can implement hash table in a few dozen of lines, it is much better.