How can I hash a string to an int using c++?

Question

I have to write my own hash function. If I wanted to just make the simple hash function that maps each letter in the string to a numerical value (i.e. a=1, b=2, c=3, ...), i

Answer 1

Just posting an improvement to Arnestig's djb2 algorithm to be constexpr-friendly. I had to remove the unsigned qualifier of the argument so it can work with literal strings.

constexpr unsigned long hash(const char *str) {
    unsigned long hash = 5381;

    while (int c = *str++) {
        hash = ((hash << 5) + hash) + c; /* hash * 33 + c */
    }

    return hash;
}