I offer you a new hash function for hash table lookup that is faster and more thorough than the one you are using now. I also give you a way to verify that it is more thorough.

All the text in this color wasn't in the 1997 Dr Dobbs article. The code given here are all public domain.

Over the past two years I've built a general hash function for hash table lookup. Most of the two dozen old hashes I've replaced have had owners who wouldn't accept a new hash unless it was a plug-in replacement for their old hash, and was demonstrably better than the old hash.

These old hashes defined my requirements:

• The keys are unaligned variable-length byte arrays.
• Sometimes keys are several such arrays.
• Sometimes a set of independent hash functions were required.
• Average key lengths ranged from 8 bytes to 200 bytes.
• Keys might be character strings, numbers, bit-arrays, or weirder things.
• Table sizes could be anything, including powers of 2.
• The hash must be faster than the old one.
• The hash must do a good job.

Without further ado, here's the fastest hash I've been able to design that meets all the requirements. The comments describe how to use it.

Update: I'm leaving the old hash in the text below, but it's obsolete, I have faster and more thorough hashes now. http://burtleburtle.net/bob/c/lookup3.c (2006) is about 2 cycles/byte, works well on 32-bit platforms, and can produce a 32 or 64 bit hash. SpookyHash (2011) is specific to 64-bit platforms, is about 1/3 cycle per byte, and produces a 32, 64, or 128 bit hash.

typedef  unsigned long  int  ub4;   /* unsigned 4-byte quantities */
typedef  unsigned       char ub1;   /* unsigned 1-byte quantities */

#define hashsize(n) ((ub4)1<<(n))
#define hashmask(n) (hashsize(n)-1)

/*
--------------------------------------------------------------------
mix -- mix 3 32-bit values reversibly.
For every delta with one or two bits set, and the deltas of all three
  high bits or all three low bits, whether the original value of a,b,c
  is almost all zero or is uniformly distributed,
* If mix() is run forward or backward, at least 32 bits in a,b,c
  have at least 1/4 probability of changing.
* If mix() is run forward, every bit of c will change between 1/3 and
  2/3 of the time.  (Well, 22/100 and 78/100 for some 2-bit deltas.)
mix() was built out of 36 single-cycle latency instructions in a 
  structure that could supported 2x parallelism, like so:
      a -= b; 
      a -= c; x = (c>>13);
      b -= c; a ^= x;
      b -= a; x = (a<<8);
      c -= a; b ^= x;
      c -= b; x = (b>>13);
      ...
  Unfortunately, superscalar Pentiums and Sparcs can't take advantage 
  of that parallelism.  They've also turned some of those single-cycle
  latency instructions into multi-cycle latency instructions.  Still,
  this is the fastest good hash I could find.  There were about 2^^68
  to choose from.  I only looked at a billion or so.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
*/
#define mix(a,b,c) \
{ \
  a -= b; a -= c; a ^= (c>>13); \
  b -= c; b -= a; b ^= (a<<8); \
  c -= a; c -= b; c ^= (b>>13); \
  a -= b; a -= c; a ^= (c>>12);  \
  b -= c; b -= a; b ^= (a<<16); \
  c -= a; c -= b; c ^= (b>>5); \
  a -= b; a -= c; a ^= (c>>3);  \
  b -= c; b -= a; b ^= (a<<10); \
  c -= a; c -= b; c ^= (b>>15); \
}

/*
--------------------------------------------------------------------
hash() -- hash a variable-length key into a 32-bit value
  k       : the key (the unaligned variable-length array of bytes)
  len     : the length of the key, counting by bytes
  initval : can be any 4-byte value
Returns a 32-bit value.  Every bit of the key affects every bit of
the return value.  Every 1-bit and 2-bit delta achieves avalanche.
About 6*len+35 instructions.

The best hash table sizes are powers of 2.  There is no need to do
mod a prime (mod is sooo slow!).  If you need less than 32 bits,
use a bitmask.  For example, if you need only 10 bits, do
  h = (h & hashmask(10));
In which case, the hash table should have hashsize(10) elements.

If you are hashing n strings (ub1 **)k, do it like this:
  for (i=0, h=0; i<n; ++i) h = hash( k[i], len[i], h);

By Bob Jenkins, 1996.  bob_jenkins@burtleburtle.net.  You may use this
code any way you wish, private, educational, or commercial.  It's free.

See http://burtleburtle.net/bob/hash/evahash.html
Use for hash table lookup, or anything where one collision in 2^^32 is
acceptable.  Do NOT use for cryptographic purposes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
*/

ub4 hash( k, length, initval)
register ub1 *k;        /* the key */
register ub4  length;   /* the length of the key */
register ub4  initval;  /* the previous hash, or an arbitrary value */
{
   register ub4 a,b,c,len;

   /* Set up the internal state */
   len = length;
   a = b = 0x9e3779b9;  /* the golden ratio; an arbitrary value */
   c = initval;         /* the previous hash value */

   /*---------------------------------------- handle most of the key */
   while (len >= 12)
   {
      a += (k[0] +((ub4)k[1]<<8) +((ub4)k[2]<<16) +((ub4)k[3]<<24));
      b += (k[4] +((ub4)k[5]<<8) +((ub4)k[6]<<16) +((ub4)k[7]<<24));
      c += (k[8] +((ub4)k[9]<<8) +((ub4)k[10]<<16)+((ub4)k[11]<<24));
      mix(a,b,c);
      k += 12; len -= 12;
   }

   /*------------------------------------- handle the last 11 bytes */
   c += length;
   switch(len)              /* all the case statements fall through */
   {
   case 11: c+=((ub4)k[10]<<24);
   case 10: c+=((ub4)k[9]<<16);
   case 9 : c+=((ub4)k[8]<<8);
      /* the first byte of c is reserved for the length */
   case 8 : b+=((ub4)k[7]<<24);
   case 7 : b+=((ub4)k[6]<<16);
   case 6 : b+=((ub4)k[5]<<8);
   case 5 : b+=k[4];
   case 4 : a+=((ub4)k[3]<<24);
   case 3 : a+=((ub4)k[2]<<16);
   case 2 : a+=((ub4)k[1]<<8);
   case 1 : a+=k[0];
     /* case 0: nothing left to add */
   }
   mix(a,b,c);
   /*-------------------------------------------- report the result */
   return c;
}

Most hashes can be modeled like this:

  initialize(internal state)
  for (each text block)
  {
    combine(internal state, text block);
    mix(internal state);
  }
  return postprocess(internal state);

In the new hash, mix() takes 3n of the 6n+35 instructions needed to hash n bytes. Blocks of text are combined with the internal state (a,b,c) by addition. This combining step is the rest of the hash function, consuming the remaining 3n instructions. The only postprocessing is to choose c out of (a,b,c) to be the result.

Three tricks promote speed:

1. Mixing is done on three 4-byte registers rather than on a 1-byte quantity.
2. Combining is done on 12-byte blocks, reducing the loop overhead.
3. The final switch statement combines a variable-length block with the registers a,b,c without a loop.

The golden ratio really is an arbitrary value. Its purpose is to avoid mapping all zeros to all zeros.

The most interesting requirement was that the hash must be better than its competition. What does it mean for a hash to be good for hash table lookup?

A good hash function distributes hash values uniformly. If you don't know the keys before choosing the function, the best you can do is map an equal number of possible keys to each hash value. If keys were distributed uniformly, an excellent hash would be to choose the first few bytes of the key and use that as the hash value. Unfortunately, real keys aren't uniformly distributed. Choosing the first few bytes works quite poorly in practice.

The real requirement then is that a good hash function should distribute hash values uniformly for the keys that users actually use.

How do we test that? Let's look at some typical user data. (Since I work at Oracle, I'll use Oracle's standard example: the EMP table.) The EMP table. Is this data uniformly distributed?

EMPNO	ENAME	JOB	MGR	HIREDATE	SAL	COMM	DEPTNO
7369	SMITH	CLERK	7902	17-DEC-80	800		20
7499	ALLEN	SALESMAN	7698	20-FEB-81	1600	300	30
7521	WARD	SALESMAN	7698	22-FEB-81	1250	500	30
7566	JONES	MANAGER	7839	02-APR-81	2975		20
7654	MARTIN	SALESMAN	7898	28-SEP-81	1250	1400	30
7698	BLAKE	MANAGER	7539	01-MAY-81	2850		30
7782	CLARK	MANAGER	7566	09-JUN-81	2450		10
7788	SCOTT	ANALYST	7698	19-APR-87	3000		20
7839	KING	PRESIDENT		17-NOV-81	5000		10
7844	TURNER	SALESMAN	7698	08-SEP-81	1500		30
7876	ADAMS	CLERK	7788	23-MAY-87	1100	0	20
7900	JAMES	CLERK	7698	03-DEC-81	950		30
7902	FORD	ANALYST	7566	03-DEC-81	3000		20
7934	MILLER	CLERK	7782	23-JAN-82	1300		10

Consider each horizontal row to be a key. Some patterns appear.

1. Keys often differ in only a few bits. For example, all the keys are ASCII, so the high bit of every byte is zero.
2. Keys often consist of substrings arranged in different orders. For example, the MGR of some keys is the EMPNO of others.
3. Length matters. The only difference between zero and no value at all may be the length of the value. Also, "aa aaa" and "aaa aa" should hash to different values.
4. Some keys are mostly zero, with only a few bits set. (That pattern doesn't appear in this example, but it's a common pattern.)

Some patterns are easy to handle. If the length is included in the data being hashed, then lengths are not a problem. If the hash does not treat text blocks commutatively, then substrings are not a problem. Strings that are mostly zeros can be tested by listing all strings with only one bit set and checking if that set of strings produces too many collisions.

The remaining pattern is that keys often differ in only a few bits. If a hash allows small sets of input bits to cancel each other out, and the user keys differ in only those bits, then all keys will map to the same handful of hash values.

Usually, when a small set of input bits cancel each other out, it is because those input bits affect only a smaller set of bits in the internal state.

Consider this hash function:

  for (hash=0, i=0; i<hash; ++i)
    hash = ((hash<<5)^(hash>>27))^key[i];
  return (hash % prime);

Any time n input bits can only affect m output bits, and n > m, then the 2ⁿ keys that differ in those input bits can only produce 2^m distinct hash values. The same is true if n input bits can only affect m bits of the internal state -- later mixing may make the 2^m results look uniformly distributed, but there will still be only 2^m results.

The function above has many sets of 2 bits that affect only 1 bit of the internal state. If there are n input bits, there are (n choose 2)=(n*n/2 - n/2) pairs of input bits, only a few of which match weaknesses in the function above. It is a common pattern for keys to differ in only a few bits. If those bits match one of a hash's weaknesses, which is a rare but not negligible event, the hash will do extremely bad. In most cases, though, it will do just fine. (This allows a function to slip through sanity checks, like hashing an English dictionary uniformly, while still frequently bombing on user data.)

In hashes built of repeated combine-mix steps, this is what usually causes this weakness:

1. A small number of bits y of one input block are combined, affecting only y bits of the internal state. So far so good.
2. The mixing step causes those y bits of the internal state to affect only z bits of the internal state.
3. The next combining step overwrites those bits with z more input bits, cancelling out the first y input bits.

The same thing can happen in reverse:

1. Uncombine this block, causing y block bits to unaffect y bits of the internal state.
2. Unmix the internal state, leaving x bits unaffected by the y bits from this block.
3. Unmixing the previous block unaffects those x bits, cancelling out this block's y bits.

(If the mixing function is not a permutation of the internal state, it is not reversible. Instead, it loses information about the earlier blocks every time it is applied, so keys differing only in the first few input blocks are more likely to collide. The mixing function ought to be a permutation.)

It is easy to test whether this weakness exists: if the mixing step causes any bit of the internal state to affect fewer bits of the internal state than there are output bits, the weakness exists. This test should be run on the reverse of the mixing function as well. It can also be run with all sets of 2 internal state bits, or all sets of 3.

Another way this weakness can happen is if any bit in the final input block does not affect every bit of the output. (The user might choose to use only the unaffected output bit, then that's 1 input bit that affects 0 output bits.)

We now have a new hash function and some theory for evaluating hash functions. Let's see how various hash functions stack up.

Additive Hash

ub4 additive(char *key, ub4 len, ub4 prime)
{
  ub4 hash, i;
  for (hash=len, i=0; i<len; ++i) 
    hash += key[i];
  return (hash % prime);
}

Rotating Hash

ub4 rotating(char *key, ub4 len, ub4 prime)
{
  ub4 hash, i;
  for (hash=len, i=0; i<len; ++i)
    hash = (hash<<4)^(hash>>28)^key[i];
  return (hash % prime);
}

  hash = (hash ^ (hash>>10) ^ (hash>>20)) & mask;

ub4 one_at_a_time(char *key, ub4 len)
{
  ub4   hash, i;
  for (hash=0, i=0; i<len; ++i)
  {
    hash += key[i];
    hash += (hash << 10);
    hash ^= (hash >> 6);
  }
  hash += (hash << 3);
  hash ^= (hash >> 11);
  hash += (hash << 15);
  return (hash & mask);
} 

ub4 bernstein(ub1 *key, ub4 len, ub4 level)
{
  ub4 hash = level;
  ub4 i;
  for (i=0; i<len; ++i) hash = 33*hash + key[i];
  return hash;
}

ub4 fnv()
{
  /* I need to fill this in */
}

u4 goulburn( const unsigned char *cp, size_t len, uint32_t last_value)
{
  register u4 h = last_value;
  int u;
  for( u=0; u<len; ++u ) {
    h += g_table0[ cp[u] ];
    h ^= (h << 3) ^ (h >> 29);
    h += g_table1[ h >> 25 ];
    h ^= (h << 14) ^ (h >> 18);
    h += 1783936964UL;
  }
  return h;
}

The Cessu hash (search for msse2 in his blog) uses SSE2, allowing it to be faster and more thorough (at first glance) than what I can do 32 bits at a time. I haven't done more than a first glance at it.

Pearson's Hash

char pearson(char *key, ub4 len, char tab[256])
{
  char hash;
  ub4  i;
  for (hash=len, i=0; i<len; ++i) 
    hash=tab[hash^key[i]];
  return (hash);
}

CRC Hashing

ub4 crc(char *key, ub4 len, ub4 mask, ub4 tab[256])
{
  ub4 hash, i;
  for (hash=len, i=0; i<len; ++i)
    hash = (hash >> 8) ^ tab[(hash & 0xff) ^ key[i]];
  return (hash & mask);
}

ub4 crc(char *key, ub4 len, ub4 mask, ub4 tab[256])
{
  ub4 hash, i;
  for (hash=len, i=0; i<len; ++i)
    hash = (hash << 8) ^ tab[(hash >> 24) ^ key[i]];
  return (hash & mask);
}

A sample implementation, complete with table, is here.

Universal Hashing

ub4 universal(char *key, ub4 len, ub4 mask, ub4 tab[MAXBITS])
{
  ub4 hash, i;
  for (hash=len, i=0; i<(len<<3); i+=8)
  {
    register char k = key[i>>3];
    if (k&0x01) hash ^= tab[i+0];
    if (k&0x02) hash ^= tab[i+1];
    if (k&0x04) hash ^= tab[i+2];
    if (k&0x08) hash ^= tab[i+3];
    if (k&0x10) hash ^= tab[i+4];
    if (k&0x20) hash ^= tab[i+5];
    if (k&0x40) hash ^= tab[i+6];
    if (k&0x80) hash ^= tab[i+7];
  }
  return (hash & mask);
}

Zobrist Hashing

ub4 zobrist( char *key, ub4 len, ub4 mask, ub4 tab[MAXBYTES][256])
{
  ub4 hash, i;
  for (hash=len, i=0; i<len; ++i)
    hash ^= tab[i][key[i]];
  return (hash & mask);
}

Zobrist hashes are especially favored for chess, checkers, othello, and other situations where you have the hash for one state and you want to compute the hash for a closely related state. You xor to the old hash the table values that you're removing from the state, then xor the table values that you're adding. For chess, for example, that's 2 xors to get the hash for the next position given the hash of the current position.

Paul Hsieh's hash

#include "pstdint.h" /* Replace with  if appropriate */
#undef get16bits
#if (defined(__GNUC__) && defined(__i386__)) || defined(__WATCOMC__) \
  || defined(_MSC_VER) || defined (__BORLANDC__) || defined (__TURBOC__)
#define get16bits(d) (*((const uint16_t *) (d)))
#endif

#if !defined (get16bits)
#define get16bits(d) ((((const uint8_t *)(d))[1] << UINT32_C(8))\
                      +((const uint8_t *)(d))[0])
#endif

uint32_t SuperFastHash (const char * data, int len) {
uint32_t hash = len, tmp;
int rem;

    if (len <= 0 || data == NULL) return 0;

    rem = len & 3;
    len >>= 2;

    /* Main loop */
    for (;len > 0; len--) {
        hash  += get16bits (data);
        tmp    = (get16bits (data+2) << 11) ^ hash;
        hash   = (hash << 16) ^ tmp;
        data  += 2*sizeof (uint16_t);
        hash  += hash >> 11;
    }

    /* Handle end cases */
    switch (rem) {
        case 3: hash += get16bits (data);
                hash ^= hash << 16;
                hash ^= data[sizeof (uint16_t)] << 18;
                hash += hash >> 11;
                break;
        case 2: hash += get16bits (data);
                hash ^= hash << 11;
                hash += hash >> 17;
                break;
        case 1: hash += *data;
                hash ^= hash << 10;
                hash += hash >> 1;
    }

    /* Force "avalanching" of final 127 bits */
    hash ^= hash << 3;
    hash += hash >> 5;
    hash ^= hash << 4;
    hash += hash >> 17;
    hash ^= hash << 25;
    hash += hash >> 6;

    return hash;
}

My Hash

This takes 6n+35 instructions. It's the big one at the beginning of the article. It's implemented along with a self-test at http://burtleburtle.net/bob/c/lookup2.c.

lookup3.c

The most evil set of keys I know of are sets of keys that are all the same length, with all bytes zero, except with a few bits set. This is tested by frog.c.. To be even more evil, I had my hashes return b and c instead of just c, yielding a 64-bit hash value. Both lookup.c and lookup2.c start seeing collisions after 2⁵³ frog.c keypairs. Paul Hsieh's hash sees collisions after 2¹⁷ keypairs, even if we take two hashes with different seeds. lookup3.c is the only one of the batch that passes this test. It gets its first collision somewhere beyond 2⁶³ keypairs, which is exactly what you'd expect from a completely random mapping to 64-bit values.

MD4

The table below compares all these hash functions.

NAME

is the name of the hash.

SIZE-1000

is the smallest reasonable hash table size greater than 1000.

SPEED

is the speed of the hash, measured in instructions required to produce a hash value for a table with SIZE-1000 buckets. It is assumed the machine has a rotate instruction. These aren't very accurate measures ... I should really just do timings on a Pentium 4 or such.

INLINE

This is the speed assuming the hash is inlined in a loop that has to walk through all the characters anyways, such as a tokenizer. Such a loop doesn't always exist, and even when it does inlining isn't always possible. Some hashes (my new hash and MD4) work on blocks larger than a character. Inlining a hash removes 3n+1 instructions of loop overhead. It also removes the n instructions needed to get the characters out of the key array and into a register. It also means the length isn't known. Inlining offers other advantages. It allows the string to be converted to uppercase, and/or to unicode, before the hash is performed without the expense of an extra loop or a temporary buffer.

FUNNEL-15

is the largest set of input bits affecting the smallest set of internal state bits when mapping 15-byte keys into a 1-byte result.

FUNNEL-100

is the largest set of input bits affecting the smallest set of internal state bits when mapping 100-byte keys into a 32-bit result.

COLLIDE-32

is the number of collisions found when a dictionary of 38,470 English words was hashed into a 32-bit result. (The expected number of collisions is 0.2 .)

COLLIDE-1000

is a chi² measure of how well the hash did at mapping the 38470-word dictionary into the SIZE-1000 table. (A chi² measure greater than +3 is significantly worse than a random mapping; less than -3 is significantly better than a random mapping; in between is just random fluctuations.)

The COLLIDE-1000 numbers should be ignored, unless the numbers are bigger than 3 or less than -3. For example, generalized CRC produced +.8, -.8, or -1.8 for three different tables I tried. It's just noise. A different set of keys would give unrelated random fluctuations.

Testimonials:

• A fractal mountain and image of same