title: Hash function that produces short hashes?
body: <p>Is there a way of encryption that can take a string of any length and produce a sub-10-character hash? I want to produce reasonably unique ID's but based on message contents, rather than randomly. </p>
  
  <p>I can live with constraining the messages to integer values, though, if arbitrary-length strings are impossible. However, the hash must not be similar for two consecutive integers, in that case.</p>