Compute hex color code for an arbitrary string

If you don't really care about the "meaning" of the color you can just split up the bits of the int (remove the first for just RGB instead of ARGB)

String [] programs = {"XYZ", "TEST1", "TEST2", "TEST3", "SDFSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS"};

for(int i = 0; i < programs.length; i++) {
  System.out.println( programs[i] + " -- " + intToARGB(programs[i].hashCode()));
}
....
public static String intToARGB(int i){
    return Integer.toHexString(((i>>24)&0xFF))+
        Integer.toHexString(((i>>16)&0xFF))+
        Integer.toHexString(((i>>8)&0xFF))+
        Integer.toHexString((i&0xFF));
}

How about anding the hashcode with 0x00FFFFFF

I ran into this question while looking for a Ruby solution, so I thought I would add an answer for Ruby in case someone follows the same path I did. I ended up using the following method, which creates the same six digit hex code from a string by using String.hash and the optional base-specifying parameter of Fixnum.to_s. It slices from 1 rather than 0 to skip negative signs.

def color_from_string(query)
  '#'+query.hash.to_s(16).slice(1,6)
end