This predicate may be used to build hash tables as well as to exploit argument indexing to find complex terms more quickly.

The hash key does not rely on temporary information like addresses of atoms and may be assumed constant over different invocations and versions of SWI-Prolog.^{86Last change: version 5.10.4} Hashes differ between big and little endian machines. The term_hash/2 predicate is cycle-safe.^{bugAll arguments that (indirectly) lead to a cycle have the same hash key.}