object_hash_rb

Generate cryptographic hashes from objects and values in Ruby. Supports SHA1 and many others.

The library aims to support hashing of objects such as circular object structures, allowing for simplified deep equality checks.

Built to generate cryptographic hashes which are compatible with object-hash for NodeJS.

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'object_hash_rb'

And then execute:

$ bundle install

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install object_hash_rb

WARNING: For object_hash_rb values to be compatible with NodeJS object-hash values, you must disable the respectTypes option when hashing in JavaScript.

require "object_hash_rb"

# Encode and hash the given input.
ObjectHash.hash("Hello World")
=> "3415EF7FD82C1A04DEA35838ED84A6CECB03C790"

# The input can be any object.
ObjectHash.hash({ a: 1, b: 2, c: 3 })
=> "86BFBAADC95B656DCA2BF2393EF310A1983D59CB"

# The same input has the same output, regardless of key order.
# Great for deep equality checks.
ObjectHash.hash({ c: 3, a: 1, b: 2 })
=> "86BFBAADC95B656DCA2BF2393EF310A1983D59CB"

# There's even a handler for circular references.
test = {a: "b"}
test[:b] = test
ObjectHash.hash(test)
=> "B28AFE82FB41FE5E3CAF60E2045E46E5F5431C04"

# You can use one of several different hashing algorithms...
ObjectHash.hash("foobar", algorithm: "md5")
=> "EB920AE43AF94B25AE057837D80129EC"

# ...or you can select "passthrough" to preview how the library builds hashes.
ObjectHash.hash(test, algorithm: "passthrough")
=> "object:2:symbol:a:string:1:b,symbol:b:string:12:[CIRCULAR:0],"

# If there's a non-standard type you want to hash, you can specify a replacer
# to substitute the value before it gets hashed.
class TestStuff
  def generate_name
    "foobar"
  end
end
ObjectHash.hash({ a: TestStuff.new }, algorithm: "passthrough",
  replacer: lambda do |x|
    # Replace our type.
    return x.generate_name if x.instance_of? TestStuff
    # Else return the original.
    x
  end)
=> "object:1:symbol:a:string:6:foobar,"

# You can also make key order matter.
ObjectHash.hash({ c: 3, a: 1, b: 2 })
=> "86BFBAADC95B656DCA2BF2393EF310A1983D59CB"
ObjectHash.hash({ c: 3, a: 1, b: 2 }, unordered_objects: false)
=> "A3566EE29CFE62438C36C72BDA4C21621445E7D0"

How does this compare with other libraries?

• JS: puleos/object-hash: object_hash_rb is intended to be a compatible port of puelos/object-hash, which has wide adoption. As long as respectType is set to false, the JavaScript version will produce identical hashes to this library.
• Ruby: benlaurie/objecthash: object_hash_rb competes with, and has the following improvements over, benlaurie/objecthash:
  • Direct compatibility with the JavaScript library.
  • Recent maintenance (at time of writing, benlaurie/objecthash has not received any fixes in 3 years, for any of its libraries).
  • Higher performance (benlaurie/objecthash cryptographically hashes each value individually, whereas object_hash_rb produces a single encoding of the object before hashing.)
  • Support for circular references (benlaurie/objecthash has no handler to prevent issues with circular references)

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and the created tag, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/MasterEric/object_hash_rb. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Everyone interacting in the ObjectHash project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.