MD5 & SHA Hash Generator — Developer Code Samples

Cryptographic hash functions produce fixed-size digests from arbitrary input. Python's hashlib and the Node.js crypto module support MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, and SHA-512 natively. Use hashes for data integrity checks, password verification, and caching.

Try the interactive version online: Open MD5 & SHA Hash Generator Tool →

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
text	str	Yes	Input string or bytes to hash
algorithm	str	No	Hash algorithm: md5, sha1, sha256, sha512 (default: sha256)
encoding	str	No	String encoding to use (default: utf-8)

Returns: Hexadecimal hash digest string

Code Examples

import hashlib

# Hash a string with SHA-256 (most common)
text = "Hello, World!"
sha256 = hashlib.sha256(text.encode('utf-8')).hexdigest()
print(f"SHA-256: {sha256}")
# Output: dffd6021bb2bd5b0af676290809ec3a53191dd81c7f70a4b28688a362182986d

# MD5 (not for security, use for checksums)
md5 = hashlib.md5(text.encode('utf-8')).hexdigest()
print(f"MD5:     {md5}")

# SHA-1
sha1 = hashlib.sha1(text.encode('utf-8')).hexdigest()
print(f"SHA-1:   {sha1}")

# SHA-512
sha512 = hashlib.sha512(text.encode('utf-8')).hexdigest()
print(f"SHA-512: {sha512}")

# Hash a file (streaming, handles large files)
def hash_file(filepath, algorithm='sha256'):
    h = hashlib.new(algorithm)
    with open(filepath, 'rb') as f:
        for chunk in iter(lambda: f.read(65536), b''):
            h.update(chunk)
    return h.hexdigest()

# HMAC for message authentication
import hmac
key = b'secret-key'
message = b'important message'
mac = hmac.new(key, message, hashlib.sha256).hexdigest()
print(f"HMAC-SHA256: {mac}")

# List all available algorithms
print(hashlib.algorithms_available)

// Node.js built-in crypto module
const crypto = require('crypto');

// Hash a string with SHA-256
const text = "Hello, World!";
const sha256 = crypto.createHash('sha256').update(text, 'utf8').digest('hex');
console.log(`SHA-256: ${sha256}`);

// MD5
const md5 = crypto.createHash('md5').update(text, 'utf8').digest('hex');
console.log(`MD5: ${md5}`);

// SHA-1
const sha1 = crypto.createHash('sha1').update(text, 'utf8').digest('hex');
console.log(`SHA-1: ${sha1}`);

// HMAC-SHA256 for message authentication
const hmac = crypto.createHmac('sha256', 'secret-key')
  .update('important message')
  .digest('hex');
console.log(`HMAC-SHA256: ${hmac}`);

// Browser: Web Crypto API (async)
async function sha256Browser(message) {
  const encoder = new TextEncoder();
  const data = encoder.encode(message);
  const hashBuffer = await crypto.subtle.digest('SHA-256', data);
  const hashArray = Array.from(new Uint8Array(hashBuffer));
  return hashArray.map(b => b.toString(16).padStart(2, '0')).join('');
}
sha256Browser("Hello, World!").then(h => console.log('Browser SHA-256:', h));

# SHA-256 hash
echo -n "Hello, World!" | sha256sum

# MD5 hash
echo -n "Hello, World!" | md5sum

# SHA-1 hash
echo -n "Hello, World!" | sha1sum

# SHA-512 hash
echo -n "Hello, World!" | sha512sum

# Hash a file
sha256sum myfile.txt
md5sum myfile.txt

# Verify file integrity
echo "expectedhash  myfile.txt" | sha256sum --check

# Python one-liner for any algorithm
python3 -c "import hashlib,sys; print(hashlib.sha256(sys.argv[1].encode()).hexdigest())" "Hello"

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