How to generate a unique hash code for string input in android...?

It depends on what you mean:

• As mentioned String.hashCode() gives you a 32 bit hash code.

• If you want (say) a 64-bit hashcode you can easily implement it yourself.

• If you want a cryptographic hash of a String, the Java crypto libraries include implementations of MD5, SHA-1 and so on. You'll typically need to turn the String into a byte array, and then feed that to the hash generator / digest generator. For example, see @Bryan Kemp's answer.

• If you want a guaranteed unique hash code, you are out of luck. Hashes and hash codes are non-unique.

A Java String of length N has 65536 ^ N possible states, and requires an integer with 16 * N bits to represent all possible values. If you write a hash function that produces integer with a smaller range (e.g. less than 16 * N bits), you will eventually find cases where more than one String hashes to the same integer; i.e. the hash codes cannot be unique. This is called the Pigeonhole Principle, and there is a straight forward mathematical proof. (You can't fight math and win!)

But if "probably unique" with a very small chance of non-uniqueness is acceptable, then crypto hashes are a good answer. The math will tell you how big (i.e. how many bits) the hash has to be to achieve a given (low enough) probability of non-uniqueness.

This is a class I use to create Message Digest hashes

import java.security.MessageDigest;
import java.security.NoSuchAlgorithmException;

public class Sha1Hex {

    public String makeSHA1Hash(String input)
            throws NoSuchAlgorithmException, UnsupportedEncodingException
        {
            MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA1");
            md.reset();
            byte[] buffer = input.getBytes("UTF-8");
            md.update(buffer);
            byte[] digest = md.digest();

            String hexStr = "";
            for (int i = 0; i < digest.length; i++) {
                hexStr +=  Integer.toString( ( digest[i] & 0xff ) + 0x100, 16).substring( 1 );
            }
            return hexStr;
        }
}

String input = "some input string";
int hashCode = input.hashCode();
System.out.println("input hash code = " + hashCode);

I use this i tested it as key from my EhCacheManager Memory map ....

Its cleaner i suppose

   /**
     * Return Hash256 of String value
     *
     * @param text
     * @return 
     */
    public static String getHash256(String text) {
        try {
            return org.apache.commons.codec.digest.DigestUtils.sha256Hex(text);
        } catch (Exception ex) {
            Logger.getLogger(HashUtil.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
            return "";
        }
    }

am using maven but this is the jar commons-codec-1.9.jar

For me it worked

   public static long getUniqueLongFromString (String value){
       return  UUID.nameUUIDFromBytes(value.getBytes()).getMostSignificantBits();
    }

You can use this code for generating has code for a given string.

int hash = 7;
for (int i = 0; i < strlen; i++) {
    hash = hash*31 + charAt(i);
}

A few line of java code.

public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception{
       String str="test string";
       MessageDigest messageDigest=MessageDigest.getInstance("MD5");
       messageDigest.update(str.getBytes(),0,str.length());
       System.out.println("MD5: "+new BigInteger(1,messageDigest.digest()).toString(16));
}

Let's take a look at the stock hashCode() method:

public int hashCode() {
    int h = hash;
    if (h == 0 && count > 0) {
        for (int i = 0; i < count; i++) {
            h = 31 * h + charAt(i);
        }
        hash = h;
    }
    return h;
}

The block of code above comes from the java.lang.String class. As you can see it is a 32 bit hash code which fair enough if you are using it on a small scale of data. If you are looking for hash code with more than 32 bit, you might wanna checkout this link: http://www.javamex.com/tutorials/collections/strong_hash_code_implementation.shtml