Xref: utzoo comp.theory:369 comp.misc:8277 comp.lang.misc:4208 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!news From: flee@shire.cs.psu.edu (Felix Lee) Newsgroups: comp.theory,comp.misc,comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Modulus (Re: hashing function for strings) Message-ID: Date: 23 Feb 90 00:27:28 GMT References: <12099@goofy.megatest.UUCP> <98399@linus.UUCP> Sender: news@cs.psu.edu (Usenet) Organization: Penn State University Computer Science Lines: 15 Bob Silverman wrote: >The mapping 5 div 3 -- > 1 is a function. It is the floor function >of the quotient. Why on earth SHOULD one expect that for some function f >abs(f(a,b)) = abs(f(-a,b))????? >It would be the same as expecting f(a,b) = -f(-a,b). This simply is not >true of all functions. I find this statement a little strange. Consider: The mapping 2 plus 3 -> 5 is a function. Why on earth SHOULD one expect that for some function f, f(a,b) = f(b,a)?? I'm afraid my statement about "div" was a little unclear. The issue is whether integer division is the floor of the quotient or not. -- Felix Lee flee@shire.cs.psu.edu *!psuvax1!flee