SHA-2 hashing¶

SHA-2 computes a deterministic digest of the input bytes. Use it for data hashes; use Argon2id for password storage. These natives are synchronous.

Hash a string¶

#include <a_samp>
#include <crypto>

public OnFilterScriptInit()
{
    new digest[CRYPTO_SHA256_LENGTH + 1];
    if (!crypto_sha256("abc", digest))
    {
        print("SHA-256 failed.");
        return 1;
    }
    printf("SHA-256: %s", digest);
    return 1;
}

The result is lowercase hexadecimal. size defaults to sizeof(output) and includes the null terminator. A smaller capacity returns false without modifying the output; successful calls return true.

Bytes, packing and buffers¶

Packed and unpacked Pawn strings produce the same digest when they represent the same bytes. The plugin preserves the bytes and does not decode them as UTF-8, Windows-1252 or another encoding. Different byte encodings of the same visible text therefore produce different digests.

Input ends at the first null byte. There is no explicit-length binary hashing native yet. Empty strings are accepted. Input and output may share the same array when its capacity is sufficient for the full digest and null terminator. The supplied size must correspond to the actual output array capacity.

Large inputs are processed synchronously, so account for their cost on the server thread. The reference lists the exact signatures; data handling covers shared behavior.