joomla password encryption

Question

I need to access the joomla user table jos_users for login checking from external php script [codeignitor].

joomla storing password like this

Answer 1

Joomla "understands" the passwords with "normal" md5.

What I've done in the past (to test a user's login), was to save the original password, encrypt a new one in md5, replace it in the database, test it with the browser (and it works) and when I was done, paste the original password in the database.