Random hash in Python

Question

What is the easiest way to generate a random hash (MD5) in Python?

Answer 1

Another approach to this specific question:

import random, string

def random_md5like_hash():
    available_chars= string.hexdigits[:16]
    return ''.join(
        random.choice(available_chars)
        for dummy in xrange(32))

I'm not saying it's faster or preferable to any other answer; just that it's another approach :)

Answer 2

from hashlib import md5
plaintext = input('Enter the plaintext data to be hashed: ') # Must be a string, doesn't need to have utf-8 encoding
ciphertext = md5(plaintext.encode('utf-8').hexdigest())
print(ciphertext)

It should also be noted that MD5 is a very weak hash function, also collisions have been found (two different plaintext values result in the same hash) Just use a random value for plaintext.

Answer 3

import os, hashlib
hashlib.md5(os.urandom(32)).hexdigest()