Re: updated hash functions for postgresql v1

Kenneth Marshall <ktm(at)rice(dot)edu> writes:
> Dear PostgreSQL Developers,
> This patch is a "diff -c" against the hashfunc.c from postgresql-8.3beta1.

It's pretty obvious that this patch hasn't even been tested on a
big-endian machine:

> + #ifndef WORS_BIGENDIAN

However, why do we need two code paths anyway? I don't think there's
any requirement for the hash values to come out the same on little-
and big-endian machines. In common cases the byte-array data being
presented to the hash function would be different to start with, so
you could hardly expect identical hash results even if you had separate
code paths.

I don't find anything very compelling about 64-bit hashing, either.
We couldn't move to that without breaking API for hash functions
of user-defined types. Given all the other problems with hash
indexes, the issue of whether it's useful to have more than 2^32
hash buckets seems very far off indeed.

regards, tom lane