PHP | Hash Functions

Hello folk! Welcome back to a new edition of our tutorial on PHP. In this tutorial guide, we are going to be dropping you guys with the list of PHP Hash Functions.

PHP is a server-side programming language and it's major role is to process the back-end functionality required for an application. In this process, an authentication plays a very vital role as vulnerability can exploit the data easily. One way of securing the data is by storing it in the database in it's original form but this could lead to a situation whereby the unauthorized person can take the data easily and it can be compromised. This situation can be easily handled by using the Hash functions.

Hash functions encrypt data in its true form hence without changing its true meaning. So, when a user enters the data in its true form, the data will get encrypted in the back-end and thus authentication and authorization of the data process happens.

List of Functions

The following below is the list of Hash functions supported in PHP -

Sr.No	Function & Description
1	hash() The hash() function returns a hash value for the given data based on the algorithm like (md5, sha256). The return value is a string with hexits (hexadecimal values).
2	hash_hmac_file() The hash_hmac_file() function is used to generate keyed hash value for the given file contents using HMAC method.
3	hash_​pbkdf2() The hash_​pbkdf2() function returns PBKDF2 key derivation for the given password.
4	hash_algos() The hash_algos() function returns an array of all the hashing algorithms supported.
5	hash_copy() The hash_copy() function is used to copy the hashing context generated from hash_init().
6	hash_equals() The hash_equals() function compares two given strings at the same time and return true if equal.
7	hash_file() The hash_file() function will return hash of given file contents. The return value will be a string of lowercase hexits.
8	hash_final() The hash_final() function returns the final message digest.
9	hash_hkdf() The hash_hkdf() function returns HKDF key derivation for the given input key.
10	hash_hmac() The hash_hmac() function is used to generate keyed hash value using HMAC method.
11	hash_hmac_algos() The hash_hmac_algos() function returns an array of all the hashing algorithms that are suitable for hash_hmac.
12	hash_init() The hash_init() function initializes an incremental hashcontext that can be used with other hash functions like hash_update(), hash_final() etc.
13	hash_update() The hash_update() function will update the given data with the hash context.
14	hash_update_file() The hash_update_file() function will update the given file content with the hash context.
15	hash_update_stream() The hash_update_stream() function will update the hash context from an open stream.

In our subsequent tutorials, we are going to be discussing about the above listed Hash methods.

READ: PHP | Filesystem Functions

Alright guys! This is where we are rounding up for this tutorial post. In our next tutorial guide, we are going to be discussing about the PHP hash() Function.

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