What is the canonical way to write a hasher function for TEqualityComparer.Construct?

Question

Consider the following record:

TMyRecord = record
  b: Boolean;
  // 3 bytes of padding in here with default record alignment settings
  i: Integer;
end;


        

Answer 1

The Effective Java (by Joshua Bloch) section about overriding hashCode could be useful. It shows how the individual parts of the object (or record) can be combined to efficiently construct a hashCode.

A good hash function tends to produce unequal hash codes for unequal objects. This is exactly what is meant by the third provision of the hashCode contract. Ideally, a hash function should distribute any reasonable collection of unequal instances uniformly across all possible hash values. Achieving this ideal can be extremely difficult. Luckily it is not too difficult to achieve a fair approximation. Here is a simple recipe:

1. Store some constant nonzero value, say 17, in an int variable called result.

2. For each significant field f in your object (each field taken into account by the equals method, that is), do the following:

   a. Compute an int hash code c for the field: ..... details omitted ....

   b. Combine the hash code c computed in step a into result as follows: result = 37*result + c;

3. Return result.

4. When you are done writing the hashCode method, ask yourself whether equal instances have equal hash codes. If not, figure out why and fix the problem.

This can be translated into Delphi code as follows:

{$IFOPT Q+}
  {$DEFINE OverflowChecksEnabled}
  {$Q-}
{$ENDIF}
function CombinedHash(const Values: array of Integer): Integer;
var
  Value: Integer;
begin
  Result := 17;
  for Value in Values do begin
    Result := Result*37 + Value;
  end;
end;
{$IFDEF OverflowChecksEnabled}
  {$Q+}
{$ENDIF}

This then allows the implementation of MyRecordHasher:

function MyRecordHasher(const Value: TMyRecord): Integer;
begin
  Result := CombinedHash([IfThen(Value.b, 0, 1), Value.i]);
end;