Cross-platform feature parity: achieved [Silverlight version of ComputeFileHashes now includes MD5!]
I was very happy with last week's release of ComputeFileHashes supporting the command-line, WPF, Silverlight, *and* ClickOnce. Only one thing bothered me: the Silverlight version didn't do MD5 due to the lack of support for that type of checksum by Silverlight 2. Recall that I'd fairly happily implemented my own CRC-32 class because none of the platforms supported it. [Also, it was relatively simple and had a good reference implementation. :) ] But because MD5 is a more complex algorithm and was only missing on Silverlight, I was reluctant to do the same thing for MD5...
What I really wanted was a freely available, Silverlight compatible HashAlgorithm-based MD5 implementation that I could trivially drop into my code and use on Silverlight. So I was excited when kind reader (and teammate!) Jeff Wilcox left a comment pointing to something that sounded perfect for my needs. I told Jeff I'd add MD5 for Silverlight and mentally breathed a sigh of relief that all four of ComputeFileHashes's supported platforms would provide the same set of checksums.
As it turns out, after a bit of research I decided not to use that MD5 implementation. (I'll explain why in my next post.) However, now that I'd fully bought in to the idea of MD5 on Silverlight, I was reluctant to let it go... So I spent some time working on an alternate solution and developed something I'm quite happy with. So I'm able to release an update to ComputeFileHashes that offers MD5 support on Silverlight!
The latest version of ComputeFileHashes is now 2009-01-26. I've updated all the binaries in order to avoid version number confusion - but the only real change here is the addition of MD5 for Silverlight. (FYI, I only updated the screenshot of the Silverlight version below.)
- If you're using Silverlight to run ComputeFileHashes, you'll automatically get the new version next time you run ComputeFileHashes.
- If you're using ClickOnce to run ComputeFileHashes, the application will automatically update itself after you run it a couple of times.
- If you're using the WPF or command-line versions, you'll need to download the new binaries and update manually.
Please refer to the original release announcement for more information about supported platforms, source code, implementation, etc..
I've said that "ComputeFileHashes is a simple tool intended to make verifying checksums easy for anyone.". And in some ways, I think the Silverlight version is the easiest option of all because there's no need to install it on your machine and it runs everywhere Silverlight 2 does (PC, Mac, (Linux soon!), Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, ...). So I'm really glad to add MD5 support to ComputeFileHashes for Silverlight - I hope you enjoy the new functionality!