Digest(3pm) Perl Programmers Reference Guide Digest(3pm)
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 analyzed 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 documented here should make it easy to change algo-rithms algorithms
rithms 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 representation 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 encoding.
The functional interface is simply importable functions with the same name as the algorithm. 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 module 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 calculate 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 $bitstring of "1" and "0" chars as argument. It's a
shorthand for "$ctx->add_bits(pack("B*", $bitstring), length($bitstring))".
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 <gisle@aas.no>
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(3pm)
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