Which is faster to find an item in a hashtable or in a sorted list?

Question

Which is faster to find an item in a hashtable or in a sorted list?

Answer 1

Assuming that by 'sorted list' you mean 'random-accessible, sorted collection'. A list has the property that you can only traverse it element by element, which will result in a O(N) complexity.

The fastest way to find an element in a sorted indexable collection is by N-ary search, O(logN), while a hashtable without collissions has a find complexity of O(1).