Is there any kind of hash code function in JavaScript?

Question

If you want a hashCode() function like Java's in JavaScript, that is yours:

String.prototype.hashCode = function(){
    var hash = 0;
    for (var i = 0; i < this.length; i++) {
        var character = this.charCodeAt(i);
        hash = ((hash<<5)-hash)+character;
        hash = hash & hash; // Convert to 32bit integer
    }
    return hash;
}

That is the way of implementation in Java (bitwise operator).

Please note that hashCode could be positive and negative, and that's normal, see HashCode giving negative values. So, you could consider to use Math.abs() along with this function.

JavaScript objects can only use strings as keys (anything else is converted to a string).

You could, alternatively, maintain an array which indexes the objects in question, and use its index string as a reference to the object. Something like this:

var ObjectReference = [];
ObjectReference.push(obj);

set['ObjectReference.' + ObjectReference.indexOf(obj)] = true;

Obviously it's a little verbose, but you could write a couple of methods that handle it and get and set all willy nilly.

Edit:

Your guess is fact -- this is defined behaviour in JavaScript -- specifically a toString conversion occurs meaning that you can can define your own toString function on the object that will be used as the property name. - olliej

This brings up another interesting point; you can define a toString method on the objects you want to hash, and that can form their hash identifier.

The easiest way to do this is to give each of your objects its own unique toString method:

(function() {
    var id = 0;

    /*global MyObject */
    MyObject = function() {
        this.objectId = '<#MyObject:' + (id++) + '>';
        this.toString= function() {
            return this.objectId;
        };
    };
})();

I had the same problem and this solved it perfectly for me with minimal fuss, and was a lot easier that re-implementing some fatty Java style Hashtable and adding equals() and hashCode() to your object classes. Just make sure that you don't also stick a string '<#MyObject:12> into your hash or it will wipe out the entry for your exiting object with that id.

Now all my hashes are totally chill. I also just posted a blog entry a few days ago about this exact topic.

What you described is covered by Harmony WeakMaps, part of the ECMAScript 6 specification (next version of JavaScript). That is: a set where the keys can be anything (including undefined) and is non-enumerable.

This means it's impossible to get a reference to a value unless you have a direct reference to the key (any object!) that links to it. It's important for a bunch of engine implementation reasons relating to efficiency and garbage collection, but it's also super cool for in that it allows for new semantics like revokable access permissions and passing data without exposing the data sender.

From MDN:

var wm1 = new WeakMap(),
    wm2 = new WeakMap();
var o1 = {},
    o2 = function(){},
    o3 = window;

wm1.set(o1, 37);
wm1.set(o2, "azerty");
wm2.set(o1, o2); // A value can be anything, including an object or a function.
wm2.set(o3, undefined);
wm2.set(wm1, wm2); // Keys and values can be any objects. Even WeakMaps!

wm1.get(o2); // "azerty"
wm2.get(o2); // Undefined, because there is no value for o2 on wm2.
wm2.get(o3); // Undefined, because that is the set value.

wm1.has(o2); // True
wm2.has(o2); // False
wm2.has(o3); // True (even if the value itself is 'undefined').

wm1.has(o1);   // True
wm1.delete(o1);
wm1.has(o1);   // False

WeakMaps are available in current Firefox, Chrome and Edge. They're also supported in Node v7 , and in v6 with the --harmony-weak-maps flag.

The solution I chose is similar to Daniel's, but rather than use an object factory and override the toString, I explicitly add the hash to the object when it is first requested through a getHashCode function. A little messy, but better for my needs :)

Function.prototype.getHashCode = (function(id) {
    return function() {
        if (!this.hashCode) {
            this.hashCode = '<hash|#' + (id++) + '>';
        }
        return this.hashCode;
    }
}(0));

For my specific situation I only care about the equality of the object as far as keys and primitive values go. The solution that worked for me was converting the object to its JSON representation and using that as the hash. There are limitations such as order of key definition potentially being inconsistent; but like I said it worked for me because these objects were all being generated in one place.

var hashtable = {};

var myObject = {a:0,b:1,c:2};

var hash = JSON.stringify(myObject);
// '{"a":0,"b":1,"c":2}'

hashtable[hash] = myObject;
// {
//   '{"a":0,"b":1,"c":2}': myObject
// }