From: Peter Szinek <peter@...>
Date: 2008-11-12T23:47:57+09:00
Subject: Re: Convert text string i.e 'Peter' into integer ID

> 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.

If you just want to check for duplicates, just store a SHA1 hash of  
the string:
(AR example follows, obviously you can use any ORM or plain SQL):

require "sha1";

headline = "Man lands on the moon"
Article.create(:headline => headline, uniq_hash =>  
SHA1.digest(headline))

...
later
....

you want to decide whether new_headline already exists:

Article.create( ... ) unless  
Article.find_by_uniq_hash(SHA1.digest(new_headline))

HTH,
Peter