The MD5 module allows you to use the RSA Data Security Inc. MD5 Message Digest algorithm from within Perl programs. A new MD5 context object is created with the new operation. Multiple simultaneous digest contexts can be maintained, if desired. The context is updated with the add operation which adds the strings contained in the LIST parameter. Note, however, that add('foo', 'bar'), add('foo') followed by add('bar') and add('foobar') should all give the same result. The final message digest value is returned by the digest operation as a 16-byte binary string. This operation delivers the result of add operations since the last new or reset operation. Note that the digest operation is effectively a destructive, read-once operation. Once it has been performed, the context must be reset before being used to calculate another digest value. Several convenience functions are also provided. The addfile operation takes an open file-handle and reads it until end-of file in 1024 byte blocks adding the contents to the context. The file-handle can either be specified by name or passed as a type-glob reference. The hexdigest operation calls digest and returns the result as a printable string of hexdecimal digits. The hash operation can act as either a static member function (you invoke it on the MD5 class) or as a normal virtual function. In both cases it performs the complete MD5 cycle (reset, add, digest) on the supplied scalar value. This is convenient for handling small quantities of data. When invoked on the class a temporary context is created. When invoked through an already created context object, this context is used. The latter form is slightly more efficient. The hexhash operation is analogous to hexdigest.