Editing MD5 (section)

== MD5 hashes ==
The 128-bit (16-byte) MD5 hashes (also termed ''message digests'') are typically represented as a sequence of 32 [[hexadecimal]] digits. The following demonstrates a 43-byte [[ASCII]] input and the corresponding MD5 hash:

 MD5("[[The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog]]") =
 9e107d9d372bb6826bd81d3542a419d6

Even a small change in the message will (with overwhelming probability) result in a mostly different hash, due to the [[avalanche effect]]. For example, adding a period to the end of the sentence:

 MD5("[[The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog]]{{Background color|#87CEEB|'''.'''}}") = 
 e4d909c290d0fb1ca068ffaddf22cbd0

The hash of the zero-length string is:

 MD5("") = 
 d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e

The MD5 algorithm is specified for messages consisting of any number of bits; it is not limited to multiples of eight bits ([[Octet (computing)|octets]], [[byte]]s). Some MD5 implementations such as [[md5sum]] might be limited to octets, or they might not support ''streaming'' for messages of an initially undetermined length.