[Mono-dev] [U-SPAM] Re: String.GetHashCode()

[Andreas Nahr]

> Don't forget that 4 bytes per Hashcode isn't enough. You also need a 
> boolean to store if the hash is already computed (as e.g. 0 is a valid 
> hash, too).
>
>    You could assume that any string over N would contain the precomputed
hashcode immediately after the string >in a sizeof(IntPtr) aligned 32-bit
location.
>

I don't think precomputing (a.k. non-lazy init) may be a good thing. I for
one have quite some applications that handle enormous amount of strings.
However none of these Strings ever needs to compute the hashcode. I'd rather
pay 1 (or 4) additional bytes and not precompute it.
However for other projects things will be different...

> 5) GetHashCode should never be called for a string that is not yet fully
built (like in StringBuilder), so  
> there is no worry aout the string changing after the hash code field has
been set

Well string at least contains:
internal unsafe void InternalSetChar (int idx, char val)
internal unsafe void InternalSetLength (int newLength)
Which may be usefull for more advanced optimizations in case they aren't
already used.

Greetings
Andreas