Using a cryptographic hash function, one can compute a fixed-length message hash from a message of any length. A good cryptographic hash function has the following properties:

• If we hash the same message, again and again, the hash function will always generate the same hash value.
• We can quickly compute a message hash from a message, but the reverse process is infeasible. Given a hash value, it is computationally infeasible to compute the message that generated the hash value.
• Even if there is a small change in a message, the new message will generate a new hash value that is extensively different from the earlier hash value.
• It is computationally infeasible to find two messages that generate the same hash value.

Using the hashlib module in Python, we can generate hash values from a message easily. We can use MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512, etc. hash functions to generate a hash value from a message. In this article, we would discuss how to use the hashlib Python module to generate MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, and SHA-512 hashes from a message.

MD5

MD5 is a cryptographic hash function that takes a message of arbitrary length as input and generates a 128-bit hash value. Using the hashlib module, we can compute the MD5 hash value of a message in the following way:

import hashlib

# Calculate MD5 hash
message = "Hello".encode()
message_hash = hashlib.md5(message).digest()
print(message_hash)
message_hash = hashlib.md5(message).hexdigest()
print(message_hash)

Please note that hashlib.md5() function takes bytes as input. So, we are encoding the message to get bytes and providing the encoded message as input. If we want the hash value in bytes, then we can use the digest() function. Otherwise, we can use the hexdigest() function to generate the hash value in hexadecimal.

Please note that MD5 hashes are not very secure. So, it is recommended not to use this hash function …