# hashstructure [![GoDoc](https://godoc.org/github.com/mitchellh/hashstructure?status.svg)](https://godoc.org/github.com/mitchellh/hashstructure)

hashstructure is a Go library for creating a unique hash value
for arbitrary values in Go.

This can be used to key values in a hash (for use in a map, set, etc.)
that are complex. The most common use case is comparing two values without
sending data across the network, caching values locally (de-dup), and so on.

## Features

  * Hash any arbitrary Go value, including complex types.

  * Tag a struct field to ignore it and not affect the hash value.

  * Tag a slice type struct field to treat it as a set where ordering
    doesn't affect the hash code but the field itself is still taken into
    account to create the hash value.

  * Optionally specify a custom hash function to optimize for speed, collision
    avoidance for your data set, etc.
  
  * Optionally hash the output of `.String()` on structs that implement fmt.Stringer,
    allowing effective hashing of time.Time

## Installation

Standard `go get`:

```
$ go get github.com/mitchellh/hashstructure
```

## Usage & Example

For usage and examples see the [Godoc](http://godoc.org/github.com/mitchellh/hashstructure).

A quick code example is shown below:

```go
type ComplexStruct struct {
    Name     string
    Age      uint
    Metadata map[string]interface{}
}

v := ComplexStruct{
    Name: "mitchellh",
    Age:  64,
    Metadata: map[string]interface{}{
        "car":      true,
        "location": "California",
        "siblings": []string{"Bob", "John"},
    },
}

hash, err := hashstructure.Hash(v, nil)
if err != nil {
    panic(err)
}

fmt.Printf("%d", hash)
// Output:
// 2307517237273902113
```
