GetHashCode() problem using xor

Question

My understanding is that you\'re typically supposed to use xor with GetHashCode() to produce an int to identify your data by its value (as opposed to by its reference). Here\'s

Answer 1

Andrew has posted a good example for generating a better hash code, but also bear in mind that you shouldn't use hash codes as an equality check, since they are not guaranteed to be unique.

For a trivial example of why this is consider a double object. It has more possible values than an int so it is impossible to have a unique int for each double. Hashes are really just a first pass, used in situations like a dictionary when you need to find the key quickly, by first comparing hashes a large percentage of the possible keys can be ruled out and only the keys with matching hashes need to have the expense of a full equality check (or other collision resolution methods).