I would like to see a hash_map example in C++

The current C++ standard does not have hash maps, but the coming C++0x standard does, and these are already supported by g++ in the shape of "unordered maps":

#include <unordered_map>
#include <iostream>
#include <string>
using namespace std;

int main() {
    unordered_map <string, int> m;
    m["foo"] = 42;
    cout << m["foo"] << endl;
}

In order to get this compile, you need to tell g++ that you are using C++0x:

g++ -std=c++0x main.cpp

These maps work pretty much as std::map does, except that instead of providing a custom operator<() for your own types, you need to provide a custom hash function - suitable functions are provided for types like integers and strings.

#include <tr1/unordered_map> will get you next-standard C++ unique hash container. Usage:

std::tr1::unordered_map<std::string,int> my_map;
my_map["answer"] = 42;
printf( "The answer to life and everything is: %d\n", my_map["answer"] );

Wikipedia never lets down:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_map_(C%2B%2B)

hash_map is a non-standard extension. unordered_map is part of std::tr1, and will be moved into the std namespace for C++0x. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unordered_map_%28C%2B%2B%29