the fact is: if i stored just a file index associated with a file name, i must store this correspondance in memory. If the user shares a lot of files, this can be important.

If i use an hash table, i can have the problem mentioned previously: two files can have the same hash. But the with the file name, i can find the right file, no?

I'd like to raise another problem: have i to look everytime a query comes for a criteria (for instance "madonna mp3") on my drive?? Having all the shared files in memory can be huge but is faster to seek, no?

thx,