Brian Inglis wrote:
see info sha2
Ah, in that case I guess we're talking about the same software. On Ubuntu sha512sum (which is the 512-bit version of SHA-2) does not output '*' by default. One must use the -b option to get the '*'. For example: $ sha224sum Theory 685a1c44d638eabaf90721c599ebc87dabfa1eaecafcf320b0b37cf9 Theory $ sha224sum -b Theory 685a1c44d638eabaf90721c599ebc87dabfa1eaecafcf320b0b37cf9 *Theory The checksums are the same either way. As I understand it, the Coreutils SHA-2 programs behave differently on platforms like MS-Windows that distinguish text from binary I/O, and they make -b the default there. Ian Abbott is suggesting the '*' form so that the checksums can be checked more easily on MS-Windows. We can do that on Ubuntu by using -b. The '*' will also likely confuse users on other platforms (it's certainly confused *me* in this thread...) but perhaps it's worth the hassle.