Hmm. If I was looking for ways to make the problem harder, then I'd consider the possibility that the digits might be Unicode before I considered EBCDIC. There are probably more machines running Unicode right now, today, than have ever used EBCDIC.

Of course, if you happen to have one of those few EBCDIC machines lying around, it would probably solve the problem more quickly than several hundred of the average Unicode boxes put together, but that's another story.

One thing you wouldn't have to worry about on the average EBCDIC machine is a trifling 350MB of ram, at which point the big hash becomes the KISS solution. It certainly negates the character set problem.

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
The "good enough" maybe good enough for the now, and perfection maybe unobtainable, but that should not preclude us from striving for perfection, when time, circumstance or desire allow.

In reply to Re^6: Determining uniqueness in a string. by BrowserUk
in thread Determining uniqueness in a string. by Yzzyx

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