title: Why multiply by a prime before xoring in many GetHashCode Implementations?
body: <p>I understand that multiplication by a large number before xoring should help with badly distributed operands but why should the multiplier be a prime?</p>
  <blockquote>
  <p><strong>Related:</strong><br />
  <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1145217/why-should-hash-functions-use-a-prime-number-modulus">Why should hash functions use a prime number modulus?</a></p>
  <p><strong>Close, but not quite a Duplicate:</strong><br />
  <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/299304/why-does-javas-hashcode-in-string-use-31-as-a-multiplier">Why does Java’s hashCode() in String use 31 as a multiplier?</a></p>
  </blockquote>