I know, this is really out there, but here's the situation. I have a table with a whole bunch of columns (a combination of strings, floats, and integers). I want to generate a hash from the concatenation of these columns. I'd then use this hash to match it to a hash on a lookup table.

Yes, I could simply concatenate the fields in a new field, and then compare that to a concatenation field in the other table, but that'd be really long and messy (and not nearly as nerdy as I'd like ). I know the theory behind hash functions, and I could write my own in something like Java or .NET, but are there any functions I can use in an Apptio column to do this?

For example, is there an Apptio function to convert a string character into its ASCII or Unicode character identifier (e.g., "A" would become the number 65)? Is there an Apptio function that will take a string and put it through a defined compression algorithm (e.g., DEFLATE or LZMA)?

Hi Jonathan,

I thing the concatenate method you mentioned is going to be the way forward. Although this may not be as technically interesting as you'd like, it will make things a whole lot simpler when you have to carry out troubleshooting when things aren't working as expected.

Michael

Yes, I think you're right. While a concatenation field might not give me the same level of satisfaction as a hash function, all the research I've done on this (and I've done way too much) points to a concatenation field as the most supportable method.

Interestingly, I think I may have figured out a way that you can generate a hash function within Apptio, but it would require several intermediate fields, loads of processor cycles (greatly increasing calculation times), and would be a nightmare to troubleshoot. I might try this in a pet project just for fun sometime.