Digest(3) Perl Programmers Reference Guide Digest(3)
NAME
Digest - Modules that calculate message digests
SYNOPSIS
$md5 = Digest->new("MD5");
$sha1 = Digest->new("SHA-1");
$sha256 = Digest->new("SHA-256");
$sha384 = Digest->new("SHA-384");
$sha512 = Digest->new("SHA-512");
$hmac = Digest->HMAC_MD5($key);
DESCRIPTION
The "Digest::" modules calculate digests, also called "fingerprints" or "hashes", of some
data, called a message. The digest is (usually) some small/fixed size string. The actual
size of the digest depend of the algorithm used. The message is simply a sequence of
arbitrary bytes or bits.
An important property of the digest algorithms is that the digest is likely to change if
the message change in some way. Another property is that digest functions are one-way
functions, that is it should be hard to find a message that correspond to some given
digest. Algorithms differ in how "likely" and how "hard", as well as how efficient they
are to compute.
Note that the properties of the algorithms change over time, as the algorithms are ana-
lyzed and machines grow faster. If your application for instance depends on it being
"impossible" to generate the same digest for a different message it is wise to make it
easy to plug in stronger algorithms as the one used grow weaker. Using the interface doc-
umented here should make it easy to change algorithms later.
All "Digest::" modules provide the same programming interface. A functional interface for
simple use, as well as an object oriented interface that can handle messages of arbitrary
length and which can read files directly.
The digest can be delivered in three formats:
binary This is the most compact form, but it is not well suited for printing or embedding
in places that can't handle arbitrary data.
hex A twice as long string of lowercase hexadecimal digits.
base64 A string of portable printable characters. This is the base64 encoded representa-
tion of the digest with any trailing padding removed. The string will be about
30% longer than the binary version. MIME::Base64 tells you more about this encod-
ing.
The functional interface is simply importable functions with the same name as the algo-
rithm. The functions take the message as argument and return the digest. Example:
use Digest::MD5 qw(md5);
$digest = md5($message);
There are also versions of the functions with "_hex" or "_base64" appended to the name,
which returns the digest in the indicated form.
OO INTERFACE
The following methods are available for all "Digest::" modules:
$ctx = Digest->XXX($arg,...)
$ctx = Digest->new(XXX => $arg,...)
$ctx = Digest::XXX->new($arg,...)
The constructor returns some object that encapsulate the state of the message-digest
algorithm. You can add data to the object and finally ask for the digest. The "XXX"
should of course be replaced by the proper name of the digest algorithm you want to
use.
The two first forms are simply syntactic sugar which automatically load the right mod-
ule on first use. The second form allow you to use algorithm names which contains
letters which are not legal perl identifiers, e.g. "SHA-1". If no implementation for
the given algorithm can be found, then an exception is raised.
If new() is called as an instance method (i.e. $ctx->new) it will just reset the state
the object to the state of a newly created object. No new object is created in this
case, and the return value is the reference to the object (i.e. $ctx).
$other_ctx = $ctx->clone
The clone method creates a copy of the digest state object and returns a reference to
the copy.
$ctx->reset
This is just an alias for $ctx->new.
$ctx->add( $data, ... )
The $data provided as argument are appended to the message we calculate the digest
for. The return value is the $ctx object itself.
$ctx->addfile( $io_handle )
The $io_handle is read until EOF and the content is appended to the message we calcu-
late the digest for. The return value is the $ctx object itself.
$ctx->add_bits( $data, $nbits )
$ctx->add_bits( $bitstring )
The bits provided are appended to the message we calculate the digest for. The return
value is the $ctx object itself.
The two argument form of add_bits() will add the first $nbits bits from data. For the
last potentially partial byte only the high order "$nbits % 8" bits are used. If
$nbits is greater than "length($data) * 8", then this method would do the same as
"$ctx->add($data)", that is $nbits is silently ignored.
The one argument form of add_bits() takes a $bitstring of "1" and "0" chars as argu-
ment. It's a shorthand for "$ctx->add_bits(pack("B*", $bitstring), length($bit-
string))".
This example shows two calls that should have the same effect:
$ctx->add_bits("111100001010");
$ctx->add_bits("\xF0\xA0", 12);
Most digest algorithms are byte based. For those it is not possible to add bits that
are not a multiple of 8, and the add_bits() method will croak if you try.
$ctx->digest
Return the binary digest for the message.
Note that the "digest" operation is effectively a destructive, read-once operation.
Once it has been performed, the $ctx object is automatically "reset" and can be used
to calculate another digest value. Call $ctx->clone->digest if you want to calculate
the digest without reseting the digest state.
$ctx->hexdigest
Same as $ctx->digest, but will return the digest in hexadecimal form.
$ctx->b64digest
Same as $ctx->digest, but will return the digest as a base64 encoded string.
Digest speed
This table should give some indication on the relative speed of different algorithms. It
is sorted by throughput based on a benchmark done with of some implementations of this
API:
Algorithm Size Implementation MB/s
MD4 128 Digest::MD4 v1.3 165.0
MD5 128 Digest::MD5 v2.33 98.8
SHA-256 256 Digest::SHA2 v1.1.0 66.7
SHA-1 160 Digest::SHA v4.3.1 58.9
SHA-1 160 Digest::SHA1 v2.10 48.8
SHA-256 256 Digest::SHA v4.3.1 41.3
Haval-256 256 Digest::Haval256 v1.0.4 39.8
SHA-384 384 Digest::SHA2 v1.1.0 19.6
SHA-512 512 Digest::SHA2 v1.1.0 19.3
SHA-384 384 Digest::SHA v4.3.1 19.2
SHA-512 512 Digest::SHA v4.3.1 19.2
Whirlpool 512 Digest::Whirlpool v1.0.2 13.0
MD2 128 Digest::MD2 v2.03 9.5
Adler-32 32 Digest::Adler32 v0.03 1.3
CRC-16 16 Digest::CRC v0.05 1.1
CRC-32 32 Digest::CRC v0.05 1.1
MD5 128 Digest::Perl::MD5 v1.5 1.0
CRC-CCITT 16 Digest::CRC v0.05 0.8
These numbers was achieved Apr 2004 with ActivePerl-5.8.3 running under Linux on a P4 2.8
GHz CPU. The last 5 entries differ by being pure perl implementations of the algorithms,
which explains why they are so slow.
SEE ALSO
Digest::Adler32, Digest::CRC, Digest::Haval256, Digest::HMAC, Digest::MD2, Digest::MD4,
Digest::MD5, Digest::SHA, Digest::SHA1, Digest::SHA2, Digest::Whirlpool
New digest implementations should consider subclassing from Digest::base.
MIME::Base64
AUTHOR
Gisle Aas <>
The "Digest::" interface is based on the interface originally developed by Neil Winton for
his "MD5" module.
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same
terms as Perl itself.
Copyright 1998-2001,2003-2004 Gisle Aas.
Copyright 1995-1996 Neil Winton.
perl v5.8.8 2001-09-21 Digest(3)
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