Re: Distribution of longest common hash prefixes

"Randal L. Schwartz" [off-list ref] wrote:

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"James" == James Cloos [off-list ref] writes:

James> With that version the kernel gives:

James> 0: 
James> 1: 
James> 2: 
James> 3: 565
James> 4: 288450
James> 5: 139080
James> 6: 10699
James> 7: 700
James> 8: 32
James> 9: 2

Fascinating.  So you can spell out *any* commit in linux-2.6.git with
10 hex chars.  What do we need 40 for, again? :)

Well, the other thing is those 2 commits at 9 bytes probably were
not that way a year ago.  One of those might have only needed 8,
and the other is newer, so now you need 9.

What the above tells me is that 8 is almost a safe default for our
abbreviations, but isn't safe enough, as there are collisions past 8.

-- 
Shawn.