Why does Java's hashCode() in String use 31 as a multiplier?

Posted by jacobko on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by jacobko
Published on 2008-11-18T16:39:43Z Indexed on 2010/06/18 1:13 UTC
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In Java, the hash code for a String object is computed as

s[0]*31^(n-1) + s[1]*31^(n-2) + ... + s[n-1]

using int arithmetic, where s[i] is the ith character of the string, n is the length of the string, and ^ indicates exponentiation.

Why is 31 used as a multiplier?

I understand that the multiplier should be a relatively large prime number. So why not 29, or 37, or even 97?

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