Thanks Kem.
As I am trying to learn as much as possible, why would developers need to be able to view the hex of hashed strings?
What would they then do with the hex string?
I am just trying to work out why there are so many hashing apps in the MAS and other websites?
The hex representation of a hashed or encrypted string is often used as a key (such as a software key).
I understand that hashed strings can be used as software keys, but was curious as to why the developer would need software to VIEW the hex of a hash?
Hope that made more sense.
for lots of the apps we write, when we use a datastore (SQLite, cubeSQL, PostgreSQL, etc), we add an extra field/column for storing a hash of the record. We take most fields (things like rowID, we skip) add the fields together (particular order) into a long string then hash that string. Then if we have issues with entri(es), we can check the hash in the field vs one generated with the data in the row and determine if the data was modified outside of our app. It isnt that we dont trust our customers but we want to make sure we keep them safe from hurting themselves. And everytime we update the data in the row, we generate a new hash that is stored. That way we arent giving false positives to safety of the data.
anytime I save data into a format that the enduser could easily manipulate (or mess up), we generate put a checksum in it so we can verify it is the same data as we exported/saved. Again we are trying to help our customers from hurting themselves.
hopefully this makes sense.
Scott, so basically you are saying you occasionally need to view a hashed string, in order to compare it against another, so as to determine if they match etc.
Have I understood correctly?
Thanks.
Or just to store it. In hex form, there will be no encoding or other issues when storing in a database.
[quote=106332:@Richard Summers]I understand that hashed strings can be used as software keys, but was curious as to why the developer would need software to VIEW the hex of a hash?
Hope that made more sense.[/quote]
It’s not a matter of viewing. You have to be able to give the value to a customer, possibly over the phone, and have them type it into a field. You can’t do that with binary data.
[quote=106349:@Richard Summers]Scott, so basically you are saying you occasionally need to view a hashed string, in order to compare it against another, so as to determine if they match etc.
Have I understood correctly?
Thanks.[/quote]
yes that is 100% correct. this for the validation phase/step
when data changes I have to generate them to update that stored hash string. that is my other use case.
Thank you all - that makes more sense now 