Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!decwrl!megatest!djones
From: djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: magic number 32821 (Attn. frede)
Keywords: hash
Message-ID: <835@goofy.megatest.UUCP>
Date: 27 Sep 88 01:42:44 GMT
Organization: Megatest Corporation, San Jose, Ca
Lines: 15


I attempted to send this reply directly to frede@hplabs, but it 
got bounced.

He wanted to know where in Sedgewick I found the number 32821 as
a good candidate to multiply integers by in order to "splatter" them
around as part of a hash function.  I could have been more informative.
Sedgewick does not recommend the technique for hashing. It's in the section 
on linear-congruential random number generators. 

Of course, just multiplying by this number may not
splatter things enough for a good hash-function.  If the input numbers
are all even, for example, the splattered numbers will also be all even.

Caveat Multiplicator.