Using hashcode for a unique ID

Question

I am working in a java-based system where I need to set an id for certain elements in the visual display. One category of elements is Strings, so I decided to use the String

Answer 1

What you can do when you only have 30-50 values as you said is register each String you get into an HashMap together with a running counter as value:

HashMap StringMap = new HashMap();

StringMap.add("Test",1);
StringMap.add("AnotherTest",2);

You can then get your unique ID by calling this:

StringMap.get("Test"); //returns 1