SHA Perl 5 Extension Version 1.1 This is the Secure Hash Algorithm extension to Perl 5. I have used Perl 5.002 in making this extension; the interface was shamelessly copied from the MD5 interface by Neil Winton . I hope that it will work under 5.003 and later, but have not yet had a chance to check this out. To build the extension, unpack this distribution (presumably you have already succeeded in doing this...), then type perl Makefile.PL # create a Makefile make # build the extension locally make install # put it into the system directory This creates a dynamically-linked extension. I don't have a target to make a statically-linked perl, sorry. You should be able to unpack this distribution in the ext/ subdirectory of the perl distribution, then include SHA in the list of statically-linked extensions during configuration of perl, but I have not tried that myself. After you've installed the SHA extension, you should be able to type 'perl sha_driver.pl -x' to check if it all worked ok. If the actual results don't match the expected ones, check that you have defined or undefined LITTLE_ENDIAN properly for your machine, in sha_func.c. The default is LITTLE_ENDIAN. By default, the first version of the SHA is implemented. By defining USE_MODIFIED_SHA, also in sha_func.c, the second version of the SHA can be used instead. The modification to the SHA was made by NIST because of unspecified security concerns in the first version. Since then, there have been some potential weaknesses which have appeared in another secure hash algorithm, MD5 from RSA Data Security Inc. It is possible that these changes to the SHA were intended to address equivalent weaknesses in it. Please note that I have no test results for that second version. To see how to use the extension, look at sha_driver.pl or at SHA.pod. This extension is available under the same copyright as Perl itself is. The C sources in sha_func.c and in sha.h are in the public domain. Please direct comments to me: Uwe Hollerbach or