Perfect HASH functions.....

[Kevin Lincoln Flynn]

As long as people are talking hashing, can anyone think of a GOOD way to hash
16-bit numbers determined dynamically at runtime into a fast way to look them
up?  Specifically, I'm talking about the attribute dictionary of an object in
an OO system we're working on here -- the tags of attributes are 16-bit handles
about which nothing is known at runtime.  Someone suggested closed hashing,
with the number of buckets growing by roughly doubling primes....  ie start
with two buckets, then 3, then 7, then 17, etc.....  any ideas out there?
(oh yeah, the hash function as well as the strategy'd by nice.  [ :) ])

  Thanks in advance!!
    - Flynn
Kevin Lincoln Flynn    flynn at acm.rpi.edu, userfwvl at mts.rpi.edu
147 1st Street         H (518) 273-6914  W (518) 447-8561
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...Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours.