boost_container_hash/doc/hash/combine.adoc

[#combine]
= Combining hash values

:idprefix: combine_

Say you have a point class, representing a two dimensional location:

[source]
----
class point
{
    int x;
    int y;
public:
    point() : x(0), y(0) {}
    point(int x, int y) : x(x), y(y) {}

    bool operator==(point const& other) const
    {
        return x == other.x && y == other.y;
    }
};
----

and you wish to use it as the key for an unordered_map. You need to customise the hash for this structure. To do this we need to combine the hash values for x and y. The function `boost::hash_combine` is supplied for this purpose:

[source]
----
class point
{
    ...

    friend std::size_t hash_value(point const& p)
    {
        std::size_t seed = 0;
        boost::hash_combine(seed, p.x);
        boost::hash_combine(seed, p.y);

        return seed;
    }

    ...
};
----

Calls to `hash_combine` incrementally build the hash from the different members of `point`, it can be repeatedly called for any number of elements. It calls `hash_value` on the supplied element, and combines it with the seed.

Full code for this example is at link:../../examples/point.cpp[/libs/container_hash/examples/point.cpp].

[NOTE] 
====
When using `boost::hash_combine` the order of the calls matters.
[source]
----
std::size_t seed = 0;
boost::hash_combine(seed, 1);
boost::hash_combine(seed, 2);
----
results in a different seed to:

[source]
----
std::size_t seed = 0;
boost::hash_combine(seed, 2);
boost::hash_combine(seed, 1);
----

If you are calculating a hash value for data where the order of the data doesn't matter in comparisons (e.g. a set) you will have to ensure that the data is always supplied in the same order.

====

To calculate the hash of an iterator range you can use `boost::hash_range`:

[source]
----
std::vector<std::string> some_strings;
std::size_t hash = boost::hash_range(some_strings.begin(), some_strings.end());
----

Note that when writing template classes, you might not want to include the main hash header as it's quite an expensive include that brings in a lot of other headers, so instead you can include the `<boost/container_hash/hash_fwd.hpp>` header which forward declares `boost::hash`, `boost::hash_range` and `boost::hash_combine`. You'll need to include the main header before instantiating `boost::hash`. When using a container that uses `boost::hash` it should do that for you, so your type will work fine with the boost hash containers. There's an example of this in link:../../examples/template.hpp[template.hpp] and link:../../examples/template.cpp[template.cpp].