I can't say it means much to me, but you might want to try looking through "hv.h" in the CORE directory of your perl distribution. This, as far as I know, is where the "hash value" variable type is defined. Also, "av.h" and "sv.h" will probably be necessary reading to understand what hashes are built from. Wish I could be more help, but most of that code is far beyond me.

-Bird

...Just took a closer look at your question and the code I was pointing you to. Looks like the PERL_HASH macro (if my C terminology is correct) in "hv.h" is the implementation of the algorithm you're looking for. Hope this helps (Also hope I'm right. If not, sorry!).

Update: Turns out I was right, according to saouq's perl 5 porters link below. (for anyone who was doubting me, myself included ;)