Hash Function

A hash function (h(m)) is a tool used in cryptography that accepts an arbitrarily long message (m) as input and maps that message to (what appears to be) a random output that is a fixed size. The output is referred to as the hash (h) or message digest. Popular examples include SHA-1 and MD-5.

See Also: Message Digest, Secure Hashing Algorithm (SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512)