What is keccak?
The keccak npm package provides an implementation of the Keccak cryptographic hash function, which is the basis for the SHA-3 (Secure Hash Algorithm 3) standard. It allows developers to generate hash digests of data, which can be used for data integrity verification, digital signatures, and other cryptographic applications.
What are keccak's main functionalities?
Hashing a string
This feature allows you to hash a string using the Keccak-256 algorithm. The code sample demonstrates how to hash the string 'hello world' and output the resulting hash in hexadecimal format.
const keccak = require('keccak');
const hash = keccak('keccak256').update('hello world').digest('hex');
console.log(hash);
Hashing a buffer
This feature allows you to hash a buffer using the Keccak-256 algorithm. The code sample demonstrates how to hash a buffer containing the string 'hello world' and output the resulting hash in hexadecimal format.
const keccak = require('keccak');
const buffer = Buffer.from('hello world');
const hash = keccak('keccak256').update(buffer).digest('hex');
console.log(hash);
Hashing with different Keccak variants
This feature allows you to use different variants of the Keccak algorithm, such as Keccak-256 and Keccak-512. The code sample demonstrates how to hash the string 'hello world' using both Keccak-256 and Keccak-512, and output the resulting hashes in hexadecimal format.
const keccak = require('keccak');
const hash256 = keccak('keccak256').update('hello world').digest('hex');
const hash512 = keccak('keccak512').update('hello world').digest('hex');
console.log('Keccak-256:', hash256);
console.log('Keccak-512:', hash512);
Other packages similar to keccak
sha3
The sha3 package provides an implementation of the SHA-3 (Secure Hash Algorithm 3) standard, which is based on the Keccak algorithm. It offers similar functionality to the keccak package, allowing you to generate SHA-3 hash digests of data. The main difference is that sha3 focuses on the standardized SHA-3 variants, while keccak provides more direct access to the Keccak algorithm itself.
crypto-js
The crypto-js package is a widely-used library that provides a variety of cryptographic algorithms, including SHA-3. It offers a broader range of cryptographic functions compared to keccak, such as AES encryption, HMAC, and PBKDF2. While it includes SHA-3 hashing, it is more general-purpose and not specifically focused on the Keccak algorithm.
js-sha3
The js-sha3 package is a lightweight library that provides an implementation of the SHA-3 (Keccak) hash functions. It is similar to keccak in that it focuses on the Keccak algorithm, but it is designed to be minimalistic and easy to use in web applications. It supports various SHA-3 hash lengths, including SHA3-224, SHA3-256, SHA3-384, and SHA3-512.