How can I calculate the SHA-256 hash of a string in Android?

Question

I'm trying to get the SHA256 of a string in Android.

Here is the PHP code that I want to match:

echo bin2hex(mhash(MHASH_SHA256,"asdf"));
//outputs "f0e4c2f76c58916ec258f246851bea091d14d4247a2fc3e18694461b1816e13b"

Now, in Java, I'm trying to do the following:

            String password="asdf"
            MessageDigest digest=null;
    try {
        digest = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
    } catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException e1) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e1.printStackTrace();
    }
       digest.reset();
       try {
        Log.i("Eamorr",digest.digest(password.getBytes("UTF-8")).toString());
    } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    }

But this prints out: "a42yzk3axdv3k4yh98g8"

What did I do wrong here?

Solution thanks to erickson:

 Log.i("Eamorr",bin2hex(getHash("asdf")));

 public byte[] getHash(String password) {
       MessageDigest digest=null;
    try {
        digest = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
    } catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException e1) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e1.printStackTrace();
    }
       digest.reset();
       return digest.digest(password.getBytes());
 }
static String bin2hex(byte[] data) {
    return String.format("%0" + (data.length*2) + "X", new BigInteger(1, data));
}

I think your problem may be the getBytes(UTF-8). Try just getBytes(). — Nicholas
– Nicholas, Commented Aug 23, 2011 at 19:07
Why should anyone ever use getBytes() without specifying the encoding? — Roland Illig
– Roland Illig, Commented Aug 23, 2011 at 19:15
@Eamorr: Could you put the solution in an answer instead of the question, please? — Paŭlo Ebermann
– Paŭlo Ebermann, Commented Aug 23, 2011 at 19:17
The code you have as the solution does not work... any help? — EGHDK
– EGHDK, Commented Mar 14, 2012 at 21:06
A clean answer is written up here: stackoverflow.com/questions/9661008/… — ThomasW
– ThomasW, Commented Jan 31, 2014 at 7:42

erickson · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-26 20:17:22Z

35

The PHP function bin2hex means that it takes a string of bytes and encodes it as a hexadecimal number.

In the Java code, you are trying to take a bunch of random bytes and decode them as a string using your platform's default character encoding. That isn't going to work, and if it did, it wouldn't produce the same results.

Here's a quick-and-dirty binary-to-hex conversion for Java:

static String bin2hex(byte[] data) {
    StringBuilder hex = new StringBuilder(data.length * 2);
    for (byte b : data)
        hex.append(String.format("%02x", b & 0xFF));
    return hex.toString();
}

This is quick to write, not necessarily quick to execute. If you are doing a lot of these, you should rewrite the function with a faster implementation.

edited Oct 26, 2018 at 20:17

answered Aug 23, 2011 at 19:08

erickson

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5 Comments

class stacker Over a year ago

Actually, new BigInteger(1, data).toString(16) is all you need in the case of data from a digest function, because it's guaranteed that no nibble will be full of 0s.

erickson Over a year ago

@ClassStacker What's the SHA-1 hash of 0x35326b9705d136d0d1b5efa92d440f3171f1b711?

class stacker Over a year ago

@erickson I'm definitely to be blamed for claiming no nibble would ever be zero anyway, but here you go; according to python it's \x00P\xd5\rv\xc8\x15u\x84*\xf3\x1d\xc3L\x9b\x14{\xedX? and I stand here guilty. Thanks for pointing this out.

erickson Over a year ago

@ClassStacker No problem. SHA-1 and SHA-2 hashes, and I assume any cryptographic digest, can produce zero nybbles and bytes, including leading zeros. I didn't expect otherwise, but when you said it was impossible, it didn't take long to verify my assumption.

class stacker Over a year ago

@erickson That may not be a problem for you and me, but I presume it has the potential to lead to occasional trouble elsewhere. ;)

David Snabel-Caunt · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-23 19:10:56Z

27

You are along the right lines, but converting the bytes is a little more complicated. This works on my device:

// utility function
    private static String bytesToHexString(byte[] bytes) {
        // http://stackoverflow.com/questions/332079
        StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer();
        for (int i = 0; i < bytes.length; i++) {
            String hex = Integer.toHexString(0xFF & bytes[i]);
            if (hex.length() == 1) {
                sb.append('0');
            }
            sb.append(hex);
        }
        return sb.toString();
    }

// generate a hash

    String password="asdf";
    MessageDigest digest=null;
    String hash;
    try {
        digest = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
        digest.update(password.getBytes());

        hash = bytesToHexString(digest.digest());

        Log.i("Eamorr", "result is " + hash);
    } catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException e1) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e1.printStackTrace();
    }

Source: bytesToHexString function is from the IOSched project.

answered Aug 23, 2011 at 19:10

David Snabel-Caunt

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1 Comment

Anton Kaiser Over a year ago

Careful: the bytesToHexString function you took from IOSched project returns the String in lower-case format. When chaining it by doing SHA256(SHA256...(SHA256(input)...) you would get different results from implementations that return the String in upper-case format. This can easily be addressed by chainging the responsible line to String hex = Integer.toHexString(0xFF & bytes[i]).toUpperCase();

Henrique Monte · Accepted Answer · 2022-03-24 14:45:57Z

9

Complete answer with use example, thanks to erickson.

public static String getSha256Hash(String password) {
    try {
        MessageDigest digest = null;
        try {
            digest = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
        } catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException e1) {
            e1.printStackTrace();
        }
        digest.reset();
        return bin2hex(digest.digest(password.getBytes()));
    } catch (Exception ignored) {
        return null;
    }
}

private static String bin2hex(byte[] data) {
    StringBuilder hex = new StringBuilder(data.length * 2);
    for (byte b : data)
        hex.append(String.format("%02x", b & 0xFF));
    return hex.toString();
}

Example of use:

Toast.makeText(this, Utils.getSha256Hash("123456_MY_PASSWORD"), Toast.LENGTH_SHORT).show();

edited Mar 24, 2022 at 14:45

answered Apr 30, 2019 at 12:05

Henrique Monte

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Comments

Ivo Stoyanov · Accepted Answer · 2023-10-25 16:49:16Z

2

private fun stringToSha256(input: String): String {
    val bytes = input.toByteArray()
    val md = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256")
    val digest = md.digest(bytes)

    // Convert the byte array to a hexadecimal string
    val result = StringBuilder()
    for (byte in digest) {
        result.append(String.format("%02x", byte))
    }

    return result.toString()
}

answered Oct 25, 2023 at 16:49

Ivo Stoyanov

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Comments

Ayodele Kayode · Accepted Answer · 2019-01-05 19:59:22Z

1

i know this has been answered but i found a Hashing Library at android arsenal and its very easy,simple and just one line of code. can hash MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, or SHA-512.

first add this to your gradle and sync

implementation 'com.github.1AboveAll:Hasher:1.2'
start hasing

Hasher.Companion.hash("Hello",HashType.SHA_1);

answered Jan 5, 2019 at 19:59

Ayodele Kayode

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