NAME

Data::Digest - Objects that represent a digest values

SYNOPSIS

  $digest = Data::Digest->new(
      'MD5.d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e'
  );
  
  $digest = Data::Digest->new(
      'SHA-256' => '47DEQpj8HBSa+/TImW+5JCeuQeRkm5NMpJWZG3hSuFU',
  );
  
  $digest->matches( \$data );
  $digest->matches( $filename );

DESCRIPTION

The Data::Digest class provides utility objects that represents a digest value. It is used primarily as a convenience and to simplify code when dealing with situations where you are provided with a digest, and need to check it against some data.

It initially supports 4 different digest types, (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256 and SHA-512) to provide varying strengths of checking. The default, which is intended for speed and basic non-cryptographic file integrity checking, is MD5.

Users hand-crafting guest specifications may want to use a stronger digest.

METHODS

new

  # Two-argument digest constructor
  $digest = Data::Digest->new(
      'SHA-256' => '47DEQpj8HBSa+/TImW+5JCeuQeRkm5NMpJWZG3hSuFU',
  );
  
  # One-argument digest constructor
  $digest = Data::Digest->new(
      'MD5.d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e'
  );

The new constructor takes one or two strings parameters, and creates a new digest object, that can be stored or used to compared the digest value to existing data, or a file.

The basic two-argument form takes the name of a supported digest driver, and the digest value.

The digest driver is case sensitive and should be one of 'MD5', 'SHA-1', 'SHA-256' or 'SHA-512'. (case sensitive)

The second param should be a string containing the value of the digest in either binary, hexidecimal or base 64 format.

The constructor will auto-detect the encoding type.

For example, for a 128-bit MD5 digest, the constructor will allow a 16-character binary string, a 32-character hexedecimal string, or a 22-character base 64 string.

Returns a Data::Digest object, or throws an exception on error.

driver

The driver accessor returns the digest driver name, which be one of either 'MD5', 'SHA-1', 'SHA-256' or 'SHA-512'.

digest

The digest accessor returns the digest value, in the original format.

This could be either binary, hexidecimal or base 64 and without knowing what was originally entered you may not necesarily know which it will be.

as_string

The as_string method returns the stringified form of the digest, which will be equivalent to and suitable for use as the value passed to the single-parameter form of the constructor.

  print $digest->as_string . "\n";
  > MD5.d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e

Returns a string between around 15 and 90 characters, depending on the type and encoding of the digest value.

matches

  # Check the digest against something
  $digest->matches( $filename  );
  $digest->matches( $io_handle );
  $digest->matches( \$string   );

The matches methods checks the digest object against various forms of arbitrary data to determine if they match the digest.

It takes a single parameter, consisting of either the name of a file, an IO::Handle object, or the reference to a SCALAR string.

Returns true if the digest matches the data, false if not, or throws an exception on error.

SUPPORT

Bugs should be reported via the CPAN bug tracker at

http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/ReportBug.html?Queue=Data-Digest

For other issues, contact the author.

AUTHOR

Adam Kennedy <adamk@cpan.org>

SEE ALSO

Digest, Digest::MD5, Digest::SHA

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 2006 - 2008 Adam Kennedy.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

The full text of the license can be found in the LICENSE file included with this module.

cpanm Data::Digest

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Data::Digest