Bloom Filters in Simple Words — Distributed Systems Component
Published in
5 min readOct 3, 2023
A Bloom filter is a space-efficient probabilistic data structure that is used to test whether an element is a member of a set. The price we pay for efficiency is that it is probabilistic in nature that means, there might be some False Positive results. It can be found in networks, routers, databases(LSM Tree), and web browsers.
What We will Cover here
1. What is a Bloom Filter?
2. Uses Examples
3. How a Bloom filter works
4. Concluding Notes
What is a Bloom Filter?
- A Bloom filter is a space-efficient probabilistic data structure that’s used to test whether an element is a member of a set. In everyday terms, it’s like a super memory that knows a lot without taking up too much space! It is used to answer the question, is this element in the set? A Bloom filter would answer with either a firm NO or a Probably Yes.
