Text Hash Generator

Tool Capabilities

This tool calculates cryptographic hashes for text input using various algorithms (like MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512). Hashing produces a fixed-size string (the hash) representing the input text. It's commonly used for data integrity checks, password storage, and digital signatures.

• Generates hashes for text using multiple algorithms (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-512)
• Supports optional HMAC (Hash-based Message Authentication Code) using a secret key
• Handles UTF-8 text input correctly
• Provides uppercase/lowercase options for the hash output
• Outputs hash results in hexadecimal format
• Operates entirely offline within your browser

Common Use Cases

1. Verifying Data Integrity

   Generate a hash for text, transmit the text and hash separately, and re-calculate the hash on the receiving end to ensure the text wasn't altered during transmission or storage.

2. Password Hashing (Demonstration)

   Illustrate the basic concept of password hashing (note: use salted, strong algorithms like Argon2/bcrypt in production).

3. Generating Checksums

   Create a simple checksum for text data (like configuration strings) to detect accidental modifications.

4. Message Authentication (HMAC)

   Use HMAC with a secret key to verify both the integrity and authenticity of a message.

5. Indexing & Deduplication

   Use hashes as keys in hash tables or databases for quick lookups or to identify duplicate text entries.

6. Comparing Text Snippets

   Quickly check if two pieces of text (e.g., code snippets, configuration blocks) are identical by comparing their hashes.

7. Content-Addressable Identifiers

   Generate unique IDs based on the text content itself, useful for caching or versioning systems.

8. Digital Signatures (Part of)

   Understand how hashing text is the first step in creating or verifying digital signatures (which also involve asymmetric cryptography).

9. Generating Unique Keys

   Create reproducible, unique keys from text input for use in caching mechanisms or data structures.

10. Educational Purposes

    Demonstrate properties of hash functions like determinism and the avalanche effect (small input change = large output change).

Technical Details

The tool utilizes the browser's built-in SubtleCrypto API, part of the Web Cryptography API, to perform hashing. The input text is first encoded into a Uint8Array (typically using UTF-8 encoding). This array is then passed to the SubtleCrypto.digest() method along with the chosen algorithm (e.g., SHA-256). The result is an ArrayBuffer containing the raw hash bytes, which is then converted to a hexadecimal string for display. For HMAC, SubtleCrypto.sign() is used with a derived key. All cryptographic operations occur securely within the browser.