String hashing is a fundamental operation, used in countless applications where fast access to distinct strings is required. In this paper we describe a class of string hashing functions and explore its performance. In particular, using experiments with both small sets of keys and a large key set from a text database, we show that it is possible to achieve performance close to that theoretically predicted for hashing functions. We also consider criteria for hashing functions. We also consider criteria for choosing a hasing function and use them to compare our class of functions to other methods for string hashing. These results show that our class of hashing functions is reliable and efficient, and is therefore an appropriate choice for general-purpose hashing.
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