What does hash do in python

Question

 I saw an example of code that where hash function is applied to tuple. As a result, it returns a negative integer. I wonder what does this function do. Google does not help. I found a page that explains how hash is calculated but it does not explain why we need this function.

Answer 1

A hash is an fixed sized integer that identifies a particular value. Each value needs to have its own hash, so for the same value you will get the same hash even if it's not the same object.

>>> hash("Look at me!")
4343814758193556824
>>> f = "Look at me!"
>>> hash(f)
4343814758193556824
Hash values need to be created in such a way that the resulting values are evenly distributed to reduce the number of hash collisions you get. Hash collisions are when two different values have the same hash. Therefore, relatively small changes often result in very different hashes.

>>> hash("Look at me!!")
6941904779894686356
These numbers are very useful, as they enable quick look-up of values in a large collection of values. Two examples of their use are Python's set and dict. In a list, if you want to check if a value is in the list, with if x in values:, Python needs to go through the whole list and compare x with each value in the list values. This can take a long time for a long list. In a set, Python keeps track of each hash, and when you type if x in values:, Python will get the hash-value for x, look that up in an internal structure and then only compare x with the values that have the same hash as x.