[Python-Dev] SHA-256 module

Fri Jul 2 18:21:16 CEST 2004

At 08:55 AM 7/2/2004 -0700, Gregory P. Smith wrote:
>On Fri, Jul 02, 2004 at 01:54:05AM -0700, Trevor Perrin wrote:
> > At 03:52 PM 6/30/2004 -0700, Gregory P. Smith wrote:
> > [...]
> > >The point about SSL being included is interesting. The OpenSSL library
> > >provides implementations of all of the important hash algorithms (and
> > >uses them in order to implement ssl!). Its hashing code is much better
> > >optimized on various architectures than the python module ever will
> > >be.
> >
> > On my P4, OpenSSL SHA-1 looks around 25% faster (75 vs. 60 MB/s).
>>Exactly. On my pentium2 class celeron its >200% faster. A future version
>of openssl should include an sse2 version of sha1 thats even faster yet
>on modern cpus, approaching md5 speed on some cpus. (not integrated
>into openssl cvs as of today, but its much nicer to let the openssl
>project worry about that than us).

Interesting, I didn't know there was still so much speedup to be had!
>I think we should start by using your base code. I'm willing to
>do up a patch later to have it use OpenSSL conditionally at compilation
>time if someone else doesn't beat me to it.

That sounds like a good way to go.
>I'm still -1 on adding top level modules as I think it pollutes the top
>level namespace. I'm happy with separate modules if we stick them down
>one level underneath a hashes or digest namespace.
>>for example:
>>from digest import md5, sha1, sha256, sha224, sha384, sha512

[...]
>(sha1 and md5 are included in for completeness even though their top
>level modules would still exist for legacy reasons)

[...]
>I also don't mind the hashes.sha.new("abc", bits=224) interface that was
>proposed but prefer the above one as people think of them by algorithm
>name rather than bits (sha1 rather than 160 bit sha).

I agree with all the above - that's my preference too.
Trevor 