'HASH'ing techniques.

[Greg Wettstein]

In following discussions in comp.lang.c I have frequently seen discussions
involving 'hashing' techniques and algorithms.  These discussions were
particularly prevalent when the shift ( << >> ) operators were being discussed.

While I have done a fair amount of programming in C I have never utilized
'hashing' algorithms in any of my applications up until now.  I was given a
piece of application code just before the holiday season which needs some work
to smooth out some bugs which user's have been reporting.  One module of the
code is heavily dependent on a function which purports to 'HASH' a series of
input strings.

As near as I can tell from the code the 'hashing' function seems to generate
a unique numerical value for each string.  Is this the intended purpose of
hashing or have I misinterpreted the code?  The code seems to be dependent on
shifting an input character and on a table of prime numbers.

I would be interested in whatever information the net could provide on hashing
and HASH algorithms.  E-mail or posts to the net would be just fine.  I will
be happy to summarize any e-mail responses I receive.  Thanks in advance for
any primers the net is willing to supply.

                                               As always,
                                               G.W. Wettstein
                                               BITNET: NU013809 at NDSUVM1