{ $contract "Computes the checksum of all data in a file." } ;
ARTICLE: "checksums""Checksums"
"A " { $emphasis "checksum" } " is a function mapping sequences of bytes to fixed-length strings. While checksums are not one-to-one, a good checksum should have a low probability of collision. Additionally, some checksum algorithms are designed to be hard to reverse, in the sense that finding an input string which hashes to a given checksum string requires a brute-force search."
$nl
"Checksums are instances of a class:"
{ $subsection checksum }
"Operations on checksums:"
{ $subsection checksum-bytes }
{ $subsection checksum-stream }
{ $subsection checksum-lines }
"Checksums should implement at least one of " { $link checksum-bytes } " and " { $link checksum-stream } ". Implementing " { $link checksum-lines } " is optional."