sha, PyCrypto, SHA-256

[Dennis Benzinger]

Am 16 Dec 2006 11:17:19 -0800
schrieb mirandacascade at yahoo.com:

> Operating system: Win XP
> Vsn of Python: 2.4
> 
> Situation is this: Required to calcluate a message digest.  The
> process for calcluating the digest must use an SHA-256 algorithm.
> 
> Questions:
> 1) Is it correct that the sha module comes with python 2.4?
> 2) Is it correct that the sha module that ships with python 2.4 does
> NOT have the SHA-256 capability as part of the module?
> 3) It looks like PyCrypto is a package that, among other things,
> permits one to calculate a message digest using an SHA-256
> algorithm...is that correct?
> 4) It looks like there are a couple couple possibilities available for
> the download...either download the source code and run the setup which
> (I'm assuming) compiles the various extension modules, or download the
> pycrypto-2.0.1.win32-py2.4.zip which extracts out to a .exe; when one
> runs the just-extracted .exe, it installs the stuff on one's
> workstation.  I'm leaning toward the second option because it seems
> like most of the work has been done for me.  A quick search on this
> site didn't turn up anything that suggested there were problems with
> running the installer.  So, my question is this: are you aware of any
> problems running the installer?
> 5) Besides PyCrypto, are there any other Python packages that permit
> one to calculate a message digest using an SHA-256 algorithm?
> 
> Thank you.
> 


Python 2.5 comes with SHA-256 in the hashlib module.
So you could install Python 2.5 instead of the PyCrypto module.


Dennis