Create a hexadecimal colour based on a string with JavaScript

Question

I want to create a function that will accept any old string (will usually be a single word) and from that somehow generate a hexadecimal value between #000000

Answer 1

If your inputs are not different enough for a simple hash to use the entire color spectrum, you can use a seeded random number generator instead of a hash function.

I'm using the color coder from Joe Freeman's answer, and David Bau's seeded random number generator.

function stringToColour(str) {
    Math.seedrandom(str);
    var rand = Math.random() * Math.pow(255,3);
    Math.seedrandom(); // don't leave a non-random seed in the generator
    for (var i = 0, colour = "#"; i < 3; colour += ("00" + ((rand >> i++ * 8) & 0xFF).toString(16)).slice(-2));
    return colour;
}