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# 2 Introduction

`gperf` is a perfect hash function generator written in C++. It transforms an n element user-specified keyword set W into a perfect hash function F. F uniquely maps keywords in W onto the range 0..k, where k >= n-1. If k = n-1 then F is a minimal perfect hash function. `gperf` generates a 0..k element static lookup table and a pair of C functions. These functions determine whether a given character string s occurs in W, using at most one probe into the lookup table.

`gperf` currently generates the reserved keyword recognizer for lexical analyzers in several production and research compilers and language processing tools, including GNU C, GNU C++, GNU Java, GNU Pascal, GNU Modula 3, and GNU indent. Complete C++ source code for `gperf` is available from `http://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/gperf/`. A paper describing `gperf`'s design and implementation in greater detail is available in the Second USENIX C++ Conference proceedings or from `http://www.cs.wustl.edu/~schmidt/resume.html`.

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