title: is there any builtin javascript string hash function in newest browsers?
body: <p>Everytime a new versions of browsers show up I hear about new stuff being added, like say webGL and other technologies that no one really knows if they catch up.</p>
  
  <p>But I wonder if someone ever thought about such basic stuff in JS like hashing functions (MD5,SHA1 and the like).</p>
  
  <p>By newest browsers I mean today's development versions too like Opera 12, Chrome 17 or Firefox 10.</p>
  
  <p>Looking now for solution I found this comment on another thread here: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7204097/short-hashing-function-for-javascript">https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7204097/short-hashing-function-for-javascript</a> (<i>Do you know that javascript objects already are hashtables ?</i>). So what are these 'hashtables' ? Does it mean that I can make any string into a hash, but not an established one like md5 or sha1 but some JS build in specific ?</p>
  
  <p>basically what I need to do is:</p>
  
  <pre><code>var txt="Hello world!";
  var hash = txt.toSha1();
  </code></pre>