github.com/npaton/distribution@v2.3.1-rc.0+incompatible/digest/doc.go (about)

     1  // Package digest provides a generalized type to opaquely represent message
     2  // digests and their operations within the registry. The Digest type is
     3  // designed to serve as a flexible identifier in a content-addressable system.
     4  // More importantly, it provides tools and wrappers to work with
     5  // hash.Hash-based digests with little effort.
     6  //
     7  // Basics
     8  //
     9  // The format of a digest is simply a string with two parts, dubbed the
    10  // "algorithm" and the "digest", separated by a colon:
    11  //
    12  // 	<algorithm>:<digest>
    13  //
    14  // An example of a sha256 digest representation follows:
    15  //
    16  // 	sha256:7173b809ca12ec5dee4506cd86be934c4596dd234ee82c0662eac04a8c2c71dc
    17  //
    18  // In this case, the string "sha256" is the algorithm and the hex bytes are
    19  // the "digest".
    20  //
    21  // Because the Digest type is simply a string, once a valid Digest is
    22  // obtained, comparisons are cheap, quick and simple to express with the
    23  // standard equality operator.
    24  //
    25  // Verification
    26  //
    27  // The main benefit of using the Digest type is simple verification against a
    28  // given digest. The Verifier interface, modeled after the stdlib hash.Hash
    29  // interface, provides a common write sink for digest verification. After
    30  // writing is complete, calling the Verifier.Verified method will indicate
    31  // whether or not the stream of bytes matches the target digest.
    32  //
    33  // Missing Features
    34  //
    35  // In addition to the above, we intend to add the following features to this
    36  // package:
    37  //
    38  // 1. A Digester type that supports write sink digest calculation.
    39  //
    40  // 2. Suspend and resume of ongoing digest calculations to support efficient digest verification in the registry.
    41  //
    42  package digest