Forum Discussion

wshirley's avatar
wshirley
Binge Watcher
7 years ago

Computing sha256 hash on an empty string

I'm trying to connect to an Amazon S3 bucket using a "Get" command.  The Get has no payload, so Amazon requires a header with a SHA256 hash on an empty string.  I've tried the following code (and several variations on the theme), but I always get an empty value instead of the hash value, which should be "e3b0c44298fc1c149afbf4c8996fb92427ae41e4649b934ca495991b7852b855".
This is the code I'm using:
ba = CreateObject("roByteArray")
ba.FromAsciiString("")
digest = CreateObject("roEVPDigest")
digest.Setup("sha256")
Hash = digest.Process(ba)

Is there a way to return the hash of an empty string, or must I simply hard code the Amazon provided value into the header?
Roku Developer Program

3 Replies

  • destruk's avatar
    destruk
    Streaming Star
    7 years ago
    If it's always going to require the hash of an empty string, then the value will always be the same, so what real difference does it make for you if you simply hardcode it?
  • wshirley's avatar
    wshirley
    Binge Watcher
    7 years ago
    Not a huge difference.

    Trying to maintain better programming practice and hard coding numbers in my view generally is not good practice.

    I would rather have a generic function that I can pass any value to, but I suppose I can hardcode it there.  Thx.
  • destruk's avatar
    destruk
    Streaming Star
    7 years ago
    You can still have a generic function to pass a value to.  Something like
    Function ComputeHash(input As String) As String
    If input<>""
    ba = CreateObject("roByteArray")
    ba.FromAsciiString(input)
    digest = CreateObject("roEVPDigest")
    digest.Setup("sha256")
    Result = digest.Process(ba)
    Else
    Result=hardcoded_value
    End If
    Return Result
    End Function