constexpr hash function

Question

Here's a constexpr hash function, that will pack a string into the largest unsigned integral type available. So, what do you think?

#include <climits>

#include <cstdint>

#include <utility>

#include <iostream>

namespace detail
{

template <typename T, std::size_t ...I>
constexpr T hash(char const* const s, std::size_t const N,
  std::index_sequence<I...>) noexcept
{
  return ((T(s[I < N ? I : 0]) << ((I < N ? I : 0) * CHAR_BIT)) | ...);
}

}

template <typename T = std::uintmax_t>
constexpr T hash(char const* const s, std::size_t const N) noexcept
{
  return detail::hash<T>(s, N, std::make_index_sequence<sizeof(T)>());
}

template <typename T = std::uintmax_t, std::size_t N>
constexpr T hash(char const(&s)[N]) noexcept
{
  return hash<T>(s, N - 1);
}

int main()
{
  std::cout << (hash("a") == 'a') << std::endl;

  return 0;
}

https://wandbox.org/permlink/KbPiWJc434xYLL3q

Answer 1

Your code is too complex. With C++17, you can write more complex constexpr functions, so you don't need the variadic template tricks:

template <typename T = std::uintmax_t, std::size_t N>
constexpr T hash(char const(&s)[N]) noexcept
{
  T val{};

  for (size_t i = 0; i < N; ++i)
    val |= s[i] << (i * CHAR_BIT);

  return val;
}

Apart from that, this is a terrible hash function! The output is highly correlated to the input. It will also only hash up to sizeof(T) characters, so long strings with a common prefix might all get the same hash value.