Techniques for generating hash values for instances of distinct data values. In the techniques, each distinct data value is mapped to hash value generation information which describes how to generate a unique hash value for instances of the distinct data value. The hash value generation information for a distinct data value is then used to generate the hash value for an instance of the distinct data value. The hash value generation information may indicate whether a collision has occurred in generating the hash values for instances of the distinct data values and if so, how the collision is to be resolved. The techniques are employed to normalize RDF triples by generating the UIDS employed in the normalization from the triples' lexical values.