Okay- I give up - what on earth is a "hash" ?

Hi all,

Today I'm reading some documentation on optimizing joins and have come across a 'hash join' and the 'hash table' used in the 'hash join'....it strikes me
that in all the Oracle University courses I've taken and the several good Oracle reference texts I have everyone uses the term 'hash' without ever explaining it ( as in "hash cluster", "hash algorithm")...

It strikes me that although I've read hundreds if not thousands of pages of Oracle reference material over the last ten years I must have missed the little pamphlet that defines what on earth a hash is....

Any thoughts on the matter would be deeply appreciated....

In the meantime I'll just keep hashing over the question :)

Best regards,

Steve Received on Thu Mar 21 2002 - 08:04:43 CST