One of the great problems I have had with OO languages such as .NET and Java is that some tasks, that are as simple as calling a function in other languages, are complicated to no end. One such problem is with the different hash functions in .NET available via System.Security.Cryptography. In PHP if I need to get the MD5 of a string I simply call the built in MD5 function. In .NET I need to build my own MD5 function using System.Security.Cryptography and that, even though I understand why it is the way it is, can get a little annoying after a while. I have taken the liberty of simplifying this process by creating a HASH class that can be plugged into your programs as either a new class or by creating a hash.dll of out of it. The code lets you call MD5, SHA1, SHA256 and SHA512 functions and takes care of the process for you.
using System;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Text;
namespace Hash
{
public class Hash
{
public Hash() { }
public enum HashType : int
{
MD5,
SHA1,
SHA256,
SHA512
}
public static string GetHash(string text, HashType hashType)
{
string hashString;
switch (hashType)
{
case HashType.MD5:
hashString = GetMD5(text);
break;
case HashType.SHA1:
hashString = GetSHA1(text);
break;
case HashType.SHA256:
hashString = GetSHA256(text);
break;
case HashType.SHA512:
hashString = GetSHA512(text);
break;
default:
hashString = "Invalid Hash Type";
break;
}
return hashString;
}
public static bool CheckHash(string original, string hashString, HashType hashType)
{
string originalHash = GetHash(original, hashType);
return (originalHash == hashString);
}
private static string GetMD5(string text)
{
UnicodeEncoding UE = new UnicodeEncoding();
byte[] hashValue;
byte[] message = UE.GetBytes(text);
MD5 hashString = new MD5CryptoServiceProvider();
string hex = "";
hashValue = hashString.ComputeHash(message);
foreach (byte x in hashValue)
{
hex += String.Format("{0:x2}", x);
}
return hex;
}
private static string GetSHA1(string text)
{
UnicodeEncoding UE = new UnicodeEncoding();
byte[] hashValue;
byte[] message = UE.GetBytes(text);
SHA1Managed hashString = new SHA1Managed();
string hex = "";
hashValue = hashString.ComputeHash(message);
foreach (byte x in hashValue)
{
hex += String.Format("{0:x2}", x);
}
return hex;
}
private static string GetSHA256(string text)
{
UnicodeEncoding UE = new UnicodeEncoding();
byte[] hashValue;
byte[] message = UE.GetBytes(text);
SHA256Managed hashString = new SHA256Managed();
string hex = "";
hashValue = hashString.ComputeHash(message);
foreach (byte x in hashValue)
{
hex += String.Format("{0:x2}", x);
}
return hex;
}
private static string GetSHA512(string text)
{
UnicodeEncoding UE = new UnicodeEncoding();
byte[] hashValue;
byte[] message = UE.GetBytes(text);
SHA512Managed hashString = new SHA512Managed();
string hex = "";
hashValue = hashString.ComputeHash(message);
foreach (byte x in hashValue)
{
hex += String.Format("{0:x2}", x);
}
return hex;
}
}
}
Use the GetHash(string,HashType) method in your code to retrieve the hash value of your string, passing in the string and hash type you wish to use. To compare a string and a stored hash value use the CheckHash(string,string,HashType) method, passing in the original string, stored hash string and hash type.
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