Isn't this basically... a Merkle Tree, the underlying storage architecture of th... | Hacker News

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pmarreck on April 7, 2025 | parent | context | favorite | on: 20 years of Git

Isn't this basically... a Merkle Tree, the underlying storage architecture of things like git and Nix?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkle_tree

Except that instead of a GUID, it's just a hash of the binary data itself, which ends up being more useful because it is a natural key and doesn't require storing a separate mapping

davidgl on April 8, 2025 | [–]

Yep, invented in 1979 and also the core data structure of crypto block chains

WalterBright on April 7, 2025 | [–]

I'd never heard of a Merkle Tree before, thanks for the reference.

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