This module defines a class, Hashable, for types that can be converted to a hash value. This class exists for the benefit of hashing-based data structures. The module provides instances for most standard types. Efficient instances for other types can be generated automatically and effortlessly using the generics support in GHC 7.2 and above.

The easiest way to get started is to use the hash function. Here is an example session with ghci.

 Prelude> import Data.Hashable
 Prelude> hash "foo"
 60853164

A good hash function has a 50% probability of flipping every bit of its result in response to a change of just one bit in its input. This property is called avalanche. To be truly general purpose, hash functions must have strong avalanche behavior.

All of the Hashable instances provided by this module have excellent avalanche properties.

There are two ways to create new instances: by deriving instances automatically using GHC's generic programming support or by writing instances manually.

Beginning with GHC 7.2, the recommended way to make instances of Hashable for most types is to use the compiler's support for automatically generating default instances.

 {-# LANGUAGE DeriveGeneric #-}

 import GHC.Generics (Generic)
 import Data.Hashable

 data Foo a = Foo a String
              deriving (Eq, Generic)

 instance Hashable a => Hashable (Foo a)

 data Colour = Red | Green | Blue
               deriving Generic

 instance Hashable Colour

If you omit a body for the instance declaration, GHC will generate a default instance that correctly and efficiently hashes every constructor and parameter.

Suppose you intend to use the generic machinery to automatically generate a Hashable instance.

 data Oops = Oops
      -- forgot to add "deriving Generic" here!

 instance Hashable Oops

And imagine that, as in the example above, you forget to add a "deriving Generic" clause to your data type. At compile time, you will get an error message from GHC that begins roughly as follows:

 No instance for (GHashable (Rep Oops))

This error can be confusing, as GHashable is not exported (it is an internal typeclass used by this library's generics machinery). The correct fix is simply to add the missing "deriving Generic".

To maintain high quality hashes, new Hashable instances should be built using existing Hashable instances, combinators, and hash functions.

The functions below can be used when creating new instances of Hashable. For many string-like types the hashWithSalt method can be defined in terms of either hashPtrWithSalt or hashByteArrayWithSalt. Here's how you could implement an instance for the ByteString data type, from the bytestring package:

 import qualified Data.ByteString as B
 import qualified Data.ByteString.Internal as B
 import qualified Data.ByteString.Unsafe as B
 import Data.Hashable
 import Foreign.Ptr (castPtr)

 instance Hashable B.ByteString where
     hashWithSalt salt bs = B.inlinePerformIO $
                            B.unsafeUseAsCStringLen bs $ \(p, len) ->
                            hashPtrWithSalt p (fromIntegral len) salt

Use hashWithSalt to compute a hash from several values, using this recipe:

 data Product a b = P a b

 instance (Hashable a, Hashable b) => Hashable (Product a b) where
     hashWithSalt s (P a b) = s `hashWithSalt` a `hashWithSalt` b

You can chain hashes together using hashWithSalt, by following this recipe:

 combineTwo h1 h2 = h1 `hashWithSalt` h2

For a type with several value constructors, there are a few possible approaches to writing a Hashable instance.

If the type is an instance of Enum, the easiest (and safest) path is to convert it to an Int, and use the existing Hashable instance for Int.

 data Color = Red | Green | Blue
              deriving Enum

 instance Hashable Color where
     hashWithSalt = hashUsing fromEnum

This instance benefits from the fact that the Hashable instance for Int has excellent avalanche properties.

In contrast, a very weak hash function would be:

 terribleHash :: Color -> Int
 terribleHash salt = fromEnum

This has terrible avalanche properties, as the salt is ignored, and every input is mapped to a small integer.

If the type's constructors accept parameters, it can be important to distinguish the constructors.

 data Time = Days Int
           | Weeks Int
           | Months Int

The weak hash function below guarantees a high probability of days, weeks, and months all colliding when hashed.

 veryBadHash :: Time -> Int
 veryBadHash (Days  d)  = hash d
 veryBadHash (Weeks w)  = hash w
 veryBadHash (Months m) = hash m

It is easy to distinguish the constructors using the hashWithSalt function.

 instance Hashable Time where
     hashWithSalt s (Days n)   = s `hashWithSalt`
                                 (0::Int) `hashWithSalt` n
     hashWithSalt s (Weeks n)  = s `hashWithSalt`
                                 (1::Int) `hashWithSalt` n
     hashWithSalt s (Months n) = s `hashWithSalt`
                                 (2::Int) `hashWithSalt` n

If a constructor accepts multiple parameters, their hashes can be chained.

 data Date = Date Int Int Int

 instance Hashable Date where
     hashWithSalt s (Date yr mo dy) =
         s `hashWithSalt`
         yr `hashWithSalt`
         mo `hashWithSalt` dy