The MD5 hash value is different from Bash and PHP

Question

I tried to generate the MD5 sum (using md5sum) of a string, "hello". I tried out different methods as the md5sum tool in Linux, PHP's MD5() function as well as various online text to md5sum translators.

echo "hello" | md5sum

and

echo "hello" > file && md5sum file

Gave the result b1946ac92492d2347c6235b4d2611184. However, PHP's md5() function and almost all online generators gave the output 5D41402ABC4B2A76B9719D911017C592.

What is the reason?

http://superuser.com/questions/71554/md5-why-is-my-command-line-hash-different-from-online-md5-hash-results — Miles, Feb 22 '16 at 01:50

score 100 · Answer 1 · edited Feb 21 '16 at 22:51

100

@Cyrus's answer is exactly on point with how to resolve this - to explain, when using echo it will output a newline at the end of the string. As you can see on this online output, hello with a newline outputs exactly the MD5 you were getting previously. Using -n suppresses the newline, and will then give you the result you expected.

Edit:

You can see it clearly if you output it to hexdump, which shows the hexadecimal of the bytes there.

$ echo "str_example" | hd
00000000  73 74 72 5f 65 78 61 6d  70 6c 65 0a              |str_example.|

See the 0a (\n) in the end of the string

$ echo -n "str_example" | hd
00000000  73 74 72 5f 65 78 61 6d  70 6c 65                 |str_example|

With -n echo doesn't put a new line (\n) in the end

Now with a empty string

$ echo  "" | hd
00000000  0a                                                |.|

Just the New Line character

$ echo -n  "" | hd

Empty string, so hexdump shows no output

edited Feb 21 '16 at 22:51

Jakuje

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answered Feb 21 '16 at 17:01

Jonno

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Would be more interesting to pipe `echo hello` and `echo -n hello` to `hexdump -C` respectively ;) – Tom Yan Feb 21 '16 at 21:00
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I recommend against `echo -n`, since it's nonstandard and inconsistently supported (see [the Single Unix Spec for `echo`](http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/utilities/echo.html) and a [more detailed catalog of incompatibilities by Sven Mascheck](http://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/various/echo+printf/)). In you want it to work consistently, use `printf` instead; it's a bit more complex to use (you have to specify a format string in addition to the data you want printed), but IMO worth it to avoid trouble. In this case, `printf "%s" "hello"` will do the trick. – Gordon Davisson Feb 22 '16 at 06:33

Cyrus · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-22T11:05:29.610

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By default, echo includes a newline character at the end of the output. However, PHP and the online sites you used do not include the newline. To suppress the newline character, use the -n flag:

echo -n "hello" | md5sum

Output:

5d41402abc4b2a76b9719d911017c592  -

See: help echo

or with printf:

printf "%s" "hello" | md5sum

edited Feb 22 '16 at 11:05

answered Feb 21 '16 at 16:45

Cyrus

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I would suggest showing the more widely compatible form *before* the one that relies on behavior unspecified by POSIX. – Charles Duffy Feb 22 '16 at 22:36
Thank you. I prefer to show the problem first with his own example and the behavior of echo. – Cyrus Feb 22 '16 at 22:53
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Unless you know the OP's operating system, you don't know that the modified version of "their own example" will actually work. `echo -n` could echo `-n` if their Linux is using a stripped-down Busybox. – Charles Duffy Feb 22 '16 at 22:54
I know OP's operating system. – Cyrus Feb 22 '16 at 22:55
They specify their kernel, but where do they say more than that? – Charles Duffy Feb 22 '16 at 22:55
@CharlesDuffy: Good catch. – Cyrus Feb 22 '16 at 22:56
what about the extra ``` -``` at the end? – lrkwz May 12 '17 at 10:08
@lrkwz: I assume that means the data came from [stdin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_streams#Standard_input_.28stdin.29) and not from a file. – Cyrus May 12 '17 at 19:21

The MD5 hash value is different from Bash and PHP

2 Answers2