Question

I want to make custom object hash-able (via pickling). I could find __hash__ algorithm for Python 2.x (see code below), but it obviously differs from hash for Python 3.2 (I wonder why?). Does anybody know how __hash__ implemented in Python 3.2?

#Version: Python 3.2

def c_mul(a, b):
    #C type multiplication
    return eval(hex((int(a) * b) & 0xFFFFFFFF)[:-1])

class hs:
    #Python 2.x algorithm for hash from http://effbot.org/zone/python-hash.htm
    def __hash__(self):
        if not self:
            return 0 # empty
        value = ord(self[0]) << 7
        for char in self:
            value = c_mul(1000003, value) ^ ord(char)
        value = value ^ len(self)
        if value == -1:
            value = -2
        return value


def main():
    s = ["PROBLEM", "PROBLEN", "PROBLEO", "PROBLEP"]#, "PROBLEQ", "PROBLER", "PROBLES"]
    print("Python 3.2 hash() bild-in")
    for c in s[:]: print("hash('", c, "')=", hex(hash(c)),  end="\n")
    print("\n")
    print("Python 2.x type hash: __hash__()")
    for c in s[:]: print("hs.__hash__('", c, "')=", hex(hs.__hash__(c)),  end="\n")


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

---

OUTPUT:
Python 3.2 hash() bild-in
hash(' PROBLEM ')= 0x7a8e675a
hash(' PROBLEN ')= 0x7a8e6759
hash(' PROBLEO ')= 0x7a8e6758
hash(' PROBLEP ')= 0x7a8e6747


Python 2.x type hash: __hash__()
hs.__hash__(' PROBLEM ')= 0xa638a41
hs.__hash__(' PROBLEN ')= 0xa638a42
hs.__hash__(' PROBLEO ')= 0xa638a43
hs.__hash__(' PROBLEP ')= 0xa638a5c

Answer 1

The answer why they are different is written there:

Hash values are now values of a new
type, Py_hash_t, which is defined to
be the same size as a pointer.
Previously they were of type long,
which on some 64-bit operating systems
is still only 32 bits long.

The hashing also consider new values to be calculate, take a look at

 sys.hash_info 

For strings, you can take a look at http://svn.python.org/view/python/trunk/Objects/stringobject.c?view=markup line 1263 string_hash(PyStringObject *a)