Awesome
mmh3
mmh3
is a Python extension for
MurmurHash (MurmurHash3), a set of
fast and robust non-cryptographic hash functions invented by Austin Appleby.
By combining mmh3
with probabilistic techniques like
Bloom filter,
MinHash, and
feature hashing, you can
develop high-performance systems in fields such as data mining, machine
learning, and natural language processing.
Another popular use of mmh3
is to
calculate favicon hashes,
which are utilized by Shodan, the world's first IoT
search engine.
This page provides a quick start guide. For more comprehensive information, please refer to the documentation.
Installation
pip install mmh3
Usage
Basic usage
>>> import mmh3
>>> mmh3.hash(b"foo") # returns a 32-bit signed int
-156908512
>>> mmh3.hash("foo") # accepts str (UTF-8 encoded)
-156908512
>>> mmh3.hash(b"foo", 42) # uses 42 as the seed
-1322301282
>>> mmh3.hash(b"foo", 0, False) # returns a 32-bit unsigned int
4138058784
mmh3.mmh3_x64_128_digest()
, introduced in version 5.0.0, efficienlty hashes
buffer objects that implement the buffer protocol
(PEP 688) without internal memory copying.
The function returns a bytes
object of 16 bytes (128 bits). It is
particularly suited for hashing large memory views, such as
bytearray
, memoryview
, and numpy.ndarray
, and performs faster than
the 32-bit variants like hash()
on 64-bit machines.
>>> mmh3.mmh3_x64_128_digest(numpy.random.rand(100))
b'\x8c\xee\xc6z\xa9\xfeR\xe8o\x9a\x9b\x17u\xbe\xdc\xee'
Various alternatives are available, offering different return types (e.g., signed integers, tuples of unsigned integers) and optimized for different architectures. For a comprehensive list of functions, refer to the API Reference.
hashlib
-style hashers
mmh3
implements hasher objects with interfaces similar to those in hashlib
from the standard library, although they are still experimental. See
Hasher Classes
in the API Reference for more information.
Changelog
See Changelog for the complete changelog.
5.0.1 - 2024-09-22
Fixed
- Fix the issue that the package cannot be built from the source distribution (#90).
5.0.0 - 2024-09-18
Added
- Add support for Python 3.13.
- Improve the performance of the
hash()
function with METH_FASTCALL, reducing the overhead of function calls. For data sizes between 1–2 KB (e.g., 48x48 favicons), performance is 10%–20% faster. For smaller data (~500 bytes, like 16x16 favicons), performance increases by approximately 30% (#87). - Add
digest
functions that support the new buffer protocol (PEP 688) as input (#75). These functions are implemented withMETH_FASTCALL
too, offering improved performance (#84). - Slightly improve the performance of the
hash_bytes()
function (#88) - Add Read the Docs documentation (#54).
- Document benchmark results (#53).
Changed
- Backward-incompatible: The
seed
argument is now strictly validated to ensure it falls within the range [0, 0xFFFFFFFF]. AValueError
is raised if the seed is out of range (#84). - Backward-incompatible: Change the constructors of hasher classes to accept a buffer as the first argument (#83).
- The type of flag argumens has been changed from
bool
toAny
(#84). - Change the format of CHANGELOG.md to conform to the Keep a Changelog standard (#63).
Deprecated
- Deprecate the
hash_from_buffer()
function. Usemmh3_32_sintdigest()
ormmh3_32_uintdigest()
as alternatives (#84).
Fixed
4.1.0 - 2024-01-09
Added
- Add support for Python 3.12.
Fixed
- Fix issues with Bazel by changing the directory structure of the project (#50).
- Fix incorrect type hints (#51).
- Fix invalid results on s390x when the arg
x64arch
ofhash64
orhash_bytes()
is set toFalse
(#52).
License
MIT, unless otherwise noted within a file.
Known Issues
Different results from other MurmurHash3-based libraries
By default, mmh3
returns signed values for the 32-bit and 64-bit versions
and unsigned values for hash128
due to historical reasons. To get the
desired result, use the signed
keyword argument.
Starting from version 4.0.0, mmh3
is endian-neutral, meaning that its
hash functions return the same values on big-endian platforms as they do on
little-endian ones. In contrast, the original C++ library by Appleby is
endian-sensitive. If you need results that comply with the original library on
big-endian systems, please use version 3.*.
For compatibility with Google Guava (Java), see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29932956/murmur3-hash-different-result-between-python-and-java-implementation.
For compatibility with murmur3 (Go), see https://github.com/hajimes/mmh3/issues/46.
Contributing Guidelines
See Contributing.
Authors
MurmurHash3 was originally developed by Austin Appleby and distributed under public domain https://github.com/aappleby/smhasher.
Ported and modified for Python by Hajime Senuma.
External Tutorials
High-performance computing
The following textbooks and tutorials are great resources for learning how to
use mmh3
(and other hash algorithms in general) for high-performance computing.
- Chapter 11: Using Less Ram in Micha Gorelick and Ian Ozsvald. 2014. High
Performance Python: Practical Performant Programming for Humans. O'Reilly
Media. ISBN: 978-1-4493-6159-4.
- 2nd edition of the above (2020). ISBN: 978-1492055020.
- Max Burstein. February 2, 2013. Creating a Simple Bloom Filter.
- Duke University. April 14, 2016. Efficient storage of data in memory.
- Bugra Akyildiz. August 24, 2016. A Gentle Introduction to Bloom Filter. KDnuggets.
Internet of things
Shodan, the world's first IoT search engine, uses MurmurHash3 hash values for favicons (icons associated with web pages). ZoomEye follows Shodan's convention. Calculating these values with mmh3 is useful for OSINT and cybersecurity activities.
- Jan Kopriva. April 19, 2021. Hunting phishing websites with favicon hashes. SANS Internet Storm Center.
- Nikhil Panwar. May 2, 2022. Using Favicons to Discover Phishing & Brand Impersonation Websites. Bolster.
- Faradaysec. July 25, 2022. Understanding Spring4Shell: How used is it?. Faraday Security.
- Debjeet. August 2, 2022. How To Find Assets Using Favicon Hashes. Payatu.
Related Libraries
- https://github.com/wc-duck/pymmh3: mmh3 in pure python (Fredrik Kihlander and Swapnil Gusani)
- https://github.com/escherba/python-cityhash: Python bindings for CityHash (Eugene Scherba)
- https://github.com/veelion/python-farmhash: Python bindings for FarmHash (Veelion Chong)
- https://github.com/escherba/python-metrohash: Python bindings for MetroHash (Eugene Scherba)
- https://github.com/ifduyue/python-xxhash: Python bindings for xxHash (Yue Du)