HashString(string)

Note: This article documents Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition new content or changes/updates/fixes to 1.69 functions. These are all listed under the category and patches pages.

Returns the 32bit integer hash of sString.

int HashString(
    string sString
);

Parameters

sString

The string from which the hash is calculated.

Description

Returns the 32bit integer hash of sString. This hash is stable and will always have the same value for same input string, regardless of platform.

The hash algorithm is the same as the one used internally for strings in case statements, so you can do:

    switch (HashString(sString))
    {
         case "AAA":    HandleAAA(); break;
         case "BBB":    HandleBBB(); break;
    }

NOTE: The exact algorithm used is XXH32(sString) ^ XXH32(""). This means that HashString("") is 0.

In 1.89.8193.37 you can also hash strings at compile time, which may be useful:

int n = h"hello"; // This is a compile time equivalent of int n = HashString("hello");.

Remarks

The most useful thing is the ease of having switch statements able to handle strings, for easier code readability, but you can also use this for having database functions do faster comparisons for large bodies of text (eg for detecting changes) or similar cases of using hashes of strings.

Version

This function was added in 1.87.8193.35 of NWN:EE.

Example

    string sString = "AAA";

    switch (HashString(sString))
    {
         case "AAA":    HandleAAA(); break; // This fires in this example
         case "BBB":    HandleBBB(); break;
         default   :    HandleDefault(); break;
    }

See Also

string

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 author: Shadguy