On 11 May 2010 05:23, Paul A. Bristow <pbristow@hetp.u-net.com> wrote:
And there are other related hash functions like ISBN and Visa card check characters that could usefully be provided in the same name/space?
Things are set up to give a digest in a way that can easily and portably be read from and written to an octet stream (like a socket or file) as a check on an entire message. There's a fundamental assumption that the input could be arbitrarily long, and currently the output is assumed to be a multiple of 8 bits. So in theory yes, but practically a different set of concepts might be better, given the different properties of the inputs and the small size of the outputs for things that are more like parity checks.
(BTW Is there interest in these functions for a GSoC?)
New hash functions would definitely be possible as a GSoC, but it would almost certainly have to be plural. With the concepts and infrastructure already in place, adding a new checksum is usually a pretty simple task.