Hash

Hash[expr]

gives an integer hash code for the expression expr.

Hash[expr,type]

gives an integer hash digest of the specified type for expr.

Hash[expr,type,"format"]

gives a hash code in the specified format.

Details

  • Hash[expr,] will always give the same result for the same expression expr.
  • Possible hash types include:
  • "Adler32"Adler 32-bit cyclic redundancy check
    "BLAKE2b-512"512-bit BLAKE2b code
    "BLAKE2s-256"256-bit BLAKE2s code
    {"BLAKE2b",b}BLAKE2b code with arbitrary length b up to 512 bits
    {"BLAKE2s",b}BLAKE2s code with arbitrary length b up to 256 bits
    {"BLAKE2bp",b}multicore parallel version of BLAKE2b
    {"BLAKE2sp",b}multicore parallel version of BLAKE2s
    {"BLAKE2xb",b}BLAKE2xb code with arbitrary length b up to 256 GiB
    {"BLAKE2xs",b}BLAKE2xs code with arbitrary length b up to 128 GiB
    "CRC32"32-bit cyclic redundancy check
    "Keccak224"224-bit Keccak code
    "Keccak256"256-bit Keccak code
    "Keccak384"384-bit Keccak code
    "Keccak512"512-bit Keccak code
    {"Keccak",b}Keccak code with length b of 224, 256, 384, 512 bits
    "MD2"128-bit MD2 code
    "MD4"128-bit MD4 code
    "MD5"128-bit MD5 code
    "RIPEMD160"160-bit RIPEMD code
    "RIPEMD160SHA256"RIPEMD-160 following SHA-256 (as used in Bitcoin)
    "SHA1"160-bit SHA-1 code
    "SHA224"224-bit SHA code
    "SHA256"256-bit SHA code
    "SHA256SHA256"double SHA-256 code (as used in Bitcoin)
    "SHA384"384-bit SHA code
    "SHA512"512-bit SHA code
    {"SHA",b}SHA code with length b of 224, 256, 384, 512 bits
    "SHA3-224"224-bit SHA3 code
    "SHA3-256"256-bit SHA3 code
    "SHA3-384"384-bit SHA3 code
    "SHA3-512"512-bit SHA3 code
    {"SHA3",b}SHA3 code with length b of 224, 256, 384, 512 bits
    "Expression"expression hash code (default)
  • For a variable-length hash, length b must be a multiple of 8.
  • The "Expression" hash is computed from the internal representation of an expression and may vary between computer systems and from one version of the Wolfram Language to another.
  • For hashes that operate on sequences of bytes (such as "SHA"), Hash[expr,] first converts expr to bytes according to:
  • exprbytes based on ToString[FullForm[expr]]
    "string"bytes in the UTF-8 representation of string
    ByteArray[]literal bytes in the byte array
  • Possible formats include:
  • "Integer"integer (default)
    "DecimalString"decimal string
    "HexString"hexadecimal string
    "HexStringLittleEndian"hexadecimal string with little-endian byte order
    "Base36String"base-36 alphanumeric string
    "Base64Encoding"Base64 encoding
    "ByteArray"hash code as an explicit byte array

Examples

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Basic Examples  (4)

Hash a string:

Digital fingerprint of data:

SHA256 hash given in hexadecimal form:

Specify output length of the SHA hash:

Scope  (12)

Hash a general expression:

Equivalently:

Compare all the different hash codes:

Calculate "BLAKE2b" hashes with different lengths:

512-bit SHA code given as an integer:

512-bit SHA code given as a decimal string, including leading zeroes:

Compare the different string representations of a hash:

The double SHA code given as a ByteArray:

The byte array contains the 256 bits of the result:

View the individual bytes in the array:

RIPEMD160SHA256 hash is essentially a repeated hash:

When using ByteArray or a string, literal bytes are hashed:

For non-ASCII characters, UTF-8 representation is used for hashing:

Compute a cryptographic hash of zero bytes:

Calculate BLAKE2xs hash of desired length:

Applications  (2)

Provide a "checksum" to validate data integrity:

Change some of the data:

The checksum has changed:

A concatenated cryptographic hash function:

Hash code of "abcdef":

Properties & Relations  (12)

The hash is always the same for identical expressions:

Distinct hash codes come from distinct inputs:

The default hash code is "Expression":

The "Expression" hash fits in a machine word:

The leading bit is zero:

"Integer" is the default format:

"DecimalString" is the string version of "Integer", padded with zeros if necessary:

"HexString" is a base 16 representation, padded with zeros if necessary:

"Base36String" is a base 36 representation, padded with zeros if necessary:

"Base64Encoding" encodes bytes of the result using Base64 encoding:

"ByteArray" is a base 256 representation:

Convert from base 256 to an integer:

The result is the same:

Repeated hash can be obtained by using ByteArray as an intermediate result:

FileHash[file,code] is effectively equivalent to Hash[ReadByteArray[file],code]:

Possible Issues  (3)

Hash of a List of integers uses a serialized version of the list as an expression:

To hash literal bytes, use a ByteArray:

ASCII strings can be used to hash 7-bit byte values:

The Hash of an expression and a string containing the FullForm of the expression are different:

Hash takes into account the full symbol name, including its Context, which may result in different hash values:

Neat Examples  (2)

Hash collisions are very rare, but possible. Here are two lists of bytes:

They are not the same:

They differ in two locations:

Hash the two sequences of bytes:

Their hashes are identical:

Distribution of hash values for different types:

Wolfram Research (1988), Hash, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Hash.html (updated 2022).

Text

Wolfram Research (1988), Hash, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Hash.html (updated 2022).

CMS

Wolfram Language. 1988. "Hash." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. Last Modified 2022. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Hash.html.

APA

Wolfram Language. (1988). Hash. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Hash.html

BibTeX

@misc{reference.wolfram_2023_hash, author="Wolfram Research", title="{Hash}", year="2022", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Hash.html}", note=[Accessed: 18-March-2024 ]}

BibLaTeX

@online{reference.wolfram_2023_hash, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={Hash}, year={2022}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/Hash.html}, note=[Accessed: 18-March-2024 ]}