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  3. Node.js — Calculate a SHA512 Hash

Node.js — Calculate a SHA512 Hash

Node.js has the built-in crypto module that allows you to calculate hashes. To calculate a hash, Node.js uses a bundled version of OpenSSL for cryptographic functions. You don’t have to interact with these cryptographic functions directly. The node:crypto module wraps OpenSSL’s features with a clean API.

One of the provided API’s methods is the createHash method. This tutorial walks you through the details of creating a SHA512 hash using the features given by Node.js.

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Hash a Value in Node.js Using SHA512

The Node.js createHash(algorithm) method creates and returns a Hash instance. You must provide an algorithm to generate hash digests. You may have a look at our tutorial here on Future Studio showing you how to retrieve the list of supported hash algorithms.

Here’s a code snippet calculating a SHA512 hash of a given content value:

import { createHash } from 'node:crypto'

/**
 * Returns a SHA512 hash using SHA-2 for the given `content`.
 *
 * @see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2
 * 
 * @param {String} content
 *
 * @returns {String}
 */
function sha512(content) {  
  return createHash('sha512').update(content).digest('hex')
}

We’re using Node.js v20 to write this tutorial. Node.js v20 uses SHA-2 (Secure Hash Algorithm 2) to calculate the hash digest. The security community considers SHA-2 as secure at the time of writing this tutorial.

Hash Output Formats

The code snippet encodes the hash to “hex” format by calling .digest('hex'). You can also encode the hash value in the following formats:

  • base64
  • base64url
  • binary
  • hex

Using SHA3-512 to Calculate a Hash

Besides SHA-2, there’s the SHA-3 hash algorithm as the latest member of the Secure Hash Algorithm family. The original name of SHA-3 was “Keccak”. The Keccak algorithm is the winner in the NIST hash function competition.

You can calculate SHA-3 hashes with Node.js too. OpenSSL supports SHA512 hash using the SHA-3 hash algorithm. Use the sha3-512 hash algorithm when creating a hash instance and you’re good to go:

import { createHash } from 'node:crypto'

/**
 * Returns a SHA512 hash using SHA-3 for the given `content`.
 *
 * @see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-3
 *
 * @param {String} content
 *
 * @returns {String}
 */
function sha512(content) {  
  return createHash('sha3-512').update(content).digest('hex')
}

Enjoy SHA512 hashing in Node.js!

PS: Here’s an interesting read on StackOverflow outlining the differences between SHA-2 and SHA-3.

Mentioned Resources

Marcus Pöhls

Marcus is a fullstack JS developer. He’s passionate about the hapi framework for Node.js and loves to build web apps and APIs. Creator of Futureflix and the “learn hapi” learning path.

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