RE: Faster tag methods

["John Passaniti" <jpass@...>]

> What string processing? The only time a string
> is processed in the core of Lua is when it 
> enters it; a hash value is computed by scanning 
> the string. After that, everything is done using 
> this hash value. 

I should probably just look at the source and answer my own questions,
but how exactly does this work?  I can certainly see the use of a hash
function to do a fast first-level lookup, but once you find a match on
the hash, don't you then need to do a standard string compare on what
you found to ensure the hash is for that value?  If not, how are hash
collisions handled?