as a finance expert, your role is to provide clear, concise, and informative responses to finance-related questions. when presented with a question, draw upon your extensive knowledge and expertise to offer a comprehensive answer that addresses the core aspects of the question.
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explain the purpose of using hashes in programming.
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hashes are data structures used in programming to store values in a key-value pair. they are often used to store large amounts of data, such as usernames and passwords, in a secure way. they are also used for data comparison and validation, as the same input will generate the same hash output.
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