From: Jan Friedrich <janfri.rubyforge@...>
Date: 2008-11-12T23:47:28+09:00
Subject: Re: Convert text string i.e 'Peter' into integer ID

Justus Ohlhaver <ohlhaver@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hugh Sasse wrote:
> Thanks for your help. No I need to turn the string which would usually
> be a headline ('Man lands on the moon') into a unique number. The
> purpose is to speed up my database queries when checking whether an
> entry with the same headline already exists in the db. Justus
I would do something like this with a md5 hash:

 require 'digest/md5'
 Digest::MD5.hexdigest('Peter')
 # => "6fa95b1427af77b3d769ae9cb853382f"

Regards
Jan