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@MohamedTaha98
Created October 5, 2017 22:06
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// Djb2 hash function
unsigned long hash(char *str) {
unsigned long hash = 5381;
int c;
while ((c = *str++))
hash = ((hash << 5) + hash) + c; /* hash * 33 + c */
return hash % NUM_BUCKETS;
}
@gatsby003

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thank you ! This helped me with building a sweet hash table.

@MarcusXavierr

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Thanks man

@geekyDrake

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Thanks for the code - really helped!!

@hein-j

hein-j commented Nov 2, 2020

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thank you so much! the one that's widely circulating wouldn't compile. But this one did.

@XBoy-352

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its not compiling and its saying "conflicting types for 'hash'" and looks like the unsigned long hash(char *str) and then again unsigned long hash = 5381 are conflicting

@Ernestgio

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Thank you for the code! :D

@wbarbosa0

wbarbosa0 commented Apr 22, 2021

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its not compiling and its saying "conflicting types for 'hash'" and looks like the unsigned long hash(char *str) and then again unsigned long hash = 5381 are conflicting

Write like it this:

unsigned long hash = 5381L;

@BlachTheHole

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thanks very cool

@mongnak

mongnak commented Sep 18, 2021

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hi I'm noob
what does while ((c=*str++)) means?

@FtZPetruska

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hi I'm noob what does while ((c=*str++)) means?

Hi,

In C when you do an assignment like x = 2, it's considered a function, so if(x = 2) would be evaluated as true.

Now if we break down the statement in the while we:

  • de-reference str (*str), in other words, we get the character at this address in the string.
  • we assign the value to c.
  • we advance the str pointer to the next character (str++).
    As said earlier, the character assigned to c gets evaluated as a boolean, the last character of a C string '\0' is evaluated to false so the while loop exits when reaching the end of the string.

Hope that helped!

@PeterTreichel

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Thanks for the code! helped me build a hash table for CS50 course.

@ArthurTota

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Thanks a lot for this sharing

@M2G

M2G commented May 13, 2026

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thx for sharing

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