How to transform a stock ticker to a unique integer in r?

@erin_nader 

To transform a stock ticker symbol to a unique integer in R, you can utilize the hash function from the digest package. Here's an example:

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library(digest)

stock_ticker <- "AAPL"
unique_integer <- digest(stock_ticker, algo = "crc32")  # Use any available hash algorithm

# Print the unique integer
print(unique_integer)

This code calculates the CRC32 hash value for the stock ticker symbol "AAPL" and converts it to an integer.

Note: The resulting unique integer may not necessarily be a totally unique identifier as collisions can occur when using hash functions. However, it is highly likely to be unique for most practical purposes.