[RESOLVED] hash_map in Visual Studio 2005

Hi all,
I haven't used hash_map too much, usually map works good enough for me, but for my current task hash_map seems to be more preferable container.
I was confused when I read that Microsoft hash_map requires keys to be less than comparable, whereas other sources say that a Binary Predicate used for comparing keys must be an equivalence relation. I'm aware that hash_map is not a really "standart" template, but wonder if I need to implement both opeator == and operator < for possible compartible issues, or using Strict Weak Ordering for hash_map is pretty common.
Thanks in advance.

What is your question?

Why not just use hash_compare. Have you had a look at the examples?

My question is how "common" Microsoft implementation of hash_map is. It seems for me that they keep keys with the same hash values sorted, that is not necessary.

hash_compare is good for Visual Studio, but it doesn't seem to be standart.
For example, Microsoft hash_map implementation indroduces hash_map::key_compare, whereas others introduce hash_map::key_equal.
E.g. : http://www.sgi.com/tech/stl/HashedAs...Container.html

As a result, my code which uses a custom class as a key in hash_map and relies on MS implementation might not be compilled.