NAME
    md5sum-perl - generates or checks MD5 message digests

SYNOPSIS
     md5sum-perl [-bv] [-c [file]] | [file...]

DESCRIPTION
    md5sum-perl is a feature for feature compatible version of md5sum(1)
    written in Perl.

    md5sum generates or checks MD5 checksums. The algorithm to generate the
    checksum is reasonably fast and strong enough for most cases. Exact
    specification of the algorithm is in RFC 1321.

    Normally md5sum generates checksums of all files given to it as a
    parameter and prints the checksums followed by the filenames. If,
    however, -c is specified, only one filename parameter is allowed. This
    file should contain checksums and filenames to which these checksums
    refer to, and the files listed in that file are checked against the
    checksums listed there. See option -c for more information.

OPTIONS
    -b      Use binary mode. In unix environment, only difference between
            this and the normal mode is an asterix preceding the filename in
            the output.

    -c      Check md5sum of all files listed in file against the checksum
            listed in the same file. The actual format of that file is the
            same as output of md5sum. That is, each line in the file
            describes a file. A line looks like:

            <MD5 checksum> <filename>

            So, for example, if a file was created and its message digest
            calculated like so:

            echo foo > md5-test-file; md5sum md5-test-file

            md5sum would report:

            d3b07384d113edec49eaa6238ad5ff00 md5-test-file

    -v      Be more verbose. Print filenames when checking (with -c).

BUGS
    The related MD4 message digest algorithm was broken in October 1995. MD5
    isn't looking as secure as it used to.

    This manpage is not quite accurate and has formatting inconsistent with
    other manpages.

    md5sum does not accept standard options like --help.

HISTORY
    0.1     Feature complete beta release.

    0.01    Original version; created by h2xs 1.1.1.4 with options: -ACX -m
            md5sum

AUTHOR
    md5sum was originally written by Branko Lankester, and modified
    afterwards by Colin Plumb and Ian Jackson <ijackson@gnu.ai.mit.edu>.
    Manual page was added by Juho Vuori <javuori@cc.helsinki.fi>.

    md5sum-perl is written by Paul Baker <md5sum@paulbaker.net> using the
    Digest::MD5 module currently maintained by Gisle Aas
    <gisle@ActiveState.com>.

SEE ALSO
    perl(1), md5sum(1), the Digest::MD5 manpage.

$Id: README,v 1.1 2002/03/14 19:42:49 pbaker Exp $
