The Digest/Hash function produces a digital summary of information called a message digest. Message digests provide a digital identifier for a digital document.
Message digest functions are mathematical functions that process information to produce a message digest for each unique document. Identical documents have the same message digest, which can be used to ensure that the message received is the same as the message sent.
The input is the document or string for which you want a digest. For example, MD5 ("Austin was happy that the band played on") = d41d8cd98f00b204e6350998ecf8427e
MD5 is defined in RFC 1321. IBM® WebSphere® Cast Iron uses the MD5 algorithm included in the JDK security package. The algorithm takes a message of undefined length and outputs a message digest of 128 bits.
SHA-1 is defined by the Federal Information Processing Standards Publications (FIPS PUBS), IBM WebSphere Cast Iron uses the SHA-1 algorithm included in the JDK security package. SHA-1 takes an input message of any length less than 264 bits and produces a message digest of 160-bits.
Use Digest/Hash the Input Data with MD5 to create a digest of the input data in MD5 and the Digest/Hash the Input Data with SHA-1 function to create a digest of the input data in SHA-1.