Distribution · crypto

Digest::SHA1::Native

Works

SHA-1 through a C implementation compiled at install time — two subs, the raw digest and the hex string, for the checksum and lookup-key uses where SHA-1 is still what the other side expects.

Version: 1.0.1 zef:bduggan
Depends: LibraryMake
License: Artistic-2.0
Its own test suite: 12 files, green
Checked: 2026-09-14 against Raku++ 3.28.0 and Rakudo 2026.08
Where it lives: raku.land · source

Install it #

$ rakupp install Digest::SHA1::Native

zef install Digest::SHA1::Native writes the same store; either installer leaves the module usable by both engines.

What it is for #

SHA-1 is no longer a signature algorithm and is still everywhere as a name for content: git object ids, the blob ids in a Raku module store, the checksums an old API insists on. When a program needs to compute those over anything bigger than a few kilobytes, the pure-Raku Digest::SHA1 costs seconds per megabyte and this distribution costs milliseconds, because the work is done by a small C file that LibraryMake compiles when the module is installed. Eleven distributions depend on it for exactly that.

Both subs #

File

use Digest::SHA1::Native;

say sha1-hex('hello');
say sha1-hex('');
say sha1('hello').elems;
say sha1-hex('hello'.encode) eq sha1-hex('hello');

my $t0 = now;
sha1-hex('x' x 1_000_000);
say now - $t0 < 1;

Output

aaf4c61ddcc5e8a2dabede0f3b482cd9aea9434d
da39a3ee5e6b4b0d3255bfef95601890afd80709
20
True
True

A Str is encoded as UTF-8 before hashing, so the two spellings of hello agree; a Blob is hashed as it is. The second digest is SHA-1 of nothing — worth recognising, because it is what you get when the file you meant to read came back empty. The last line is the reason to install it: a megabyte in well under a second, where the Raku implementation takes about twenty-five.

The one thing to know #

The library is built at install time and stored beside the module, and how it is stored decides which engine can find it. Rakudo opens a compiled resource under a name derived from the blob's id, and until this week a store written by rakupp install held the library under the bare id only — so the module worked under Raku++ and died under Rakudo on the same machine with Cannot locate native library. The installer now writes the file under both names, and a fresh rakupp install Digest::SHA1::Native leaves the module usable by either engine, which is what the store promises. A store filled before the fix needs rakupp reinstall of this distribution for Rakudo's sake.

There is no incremental interface: both subs take the whole message, so a file has to be in memory to be hashed. For anything that does not fit, the system's shasum is the honest fallback.