[java] Hash String via SHA-256 in Java

By looking around here as well as the internet in general, I have found Bouncy Castle. I want to use Bouncy Castle (or some other freely available utility) to generate a SHA-256 Hash of a String in Java. Looking at their documentation I can't seem to find any good examples of what I want to do. Can anybody here help me out?

When using hashcodes with any jce provider you first try to get an instance of the algorithm, then update it with the data you want to be hashed and when you are finished you call digest to get the hash value.

MessageDigest sha = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
sha.update(in.getBytes());
byte[] digest = sha.digest();

you can use the digest to get a base64 or hex encoded version according to your needs

This is already implemented in the runtime libs.

public static String calc(InputStream is) {
    String output;
    int read;
    byte[] buffer = new byte[8192];

    try {
        MessageDigest digest = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
        while ((read = is.read(buffer)) > 0) {
            digest.update(buffer, 0, read);
        }
        byte[] hash = digest.digest();
        BigInteger bigInt = new BigInteger(1, hash);
        output = bigInt.toString(16);
        while ( output.length() < 32 ) {
            output = "0"+output;
        }
    } 
    catch (Exception e) {
        e.printStackTrace(System.err);
        return null;
    }

    return output;
}

In a JEE6+ environment one could also use JAXB DataTypeConverter:

import javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter;

String hash = DatatypeConverter.printHexBinary( 
           MessageDigest.getInstance("MD5").digest("SOMESTRING".getBytes("UTF-8")));

Using Java 8

MessageDigest digest = null;
try {
    digest = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
} catch (NoSuchAlgorithmException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}
byte[] hash = digest.digest(text.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
String encoded = DatatypeConverter.printHexBinary(hash);        
System.out.println(encoded.toLowerCase());

I suppose you are using a relatively old Java Version without SHA-256. So you must add the BouncyCastle Provider to the already provided 'Security Providers' in your java version.

    // NEEDED if you are using a Java version without SHA-256    
    Security.addProvider(new BouncyCastleProvider());

    // then go as usual 
    MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
    String text = "my string...";
    md.update(text.getBytes("UTF-8")); // or UTF-16 if needed
    byte[] digest = md.digest();

You don't necessarily need the BouncyCastle library. The following code shows how to do so using the Integer.toHexString function

public static String sha256(String base) {
    try{
        MessageDigest digest = MessageDigest.getInstance("SHA-256");
        byte[] hash = digest.digest(base.getBytes("UTF-8"));
        StringBuffer hexString = new StringBuffer();

        for (int i = 0; i < hash.length; i++) {
            String hex = Integer.toHexString(0xff & hash[i]);
            if(hex.length() == 1) hexString.append('0');
            hexString.append(hex);
        }

        return hexString.toString();
    } catch(Exception ex){
       throw new RuntimeException(ex);
    }
}

Special thanks to user1452273 from this post: How to hash some string with sha256 in Java?

Keep up the good work !

return new String(Hex.encode(digest));

Java 8: Base64 available:

    MessageDigest md = MessageDigest.getInstance( "SHA-512" );
    md.update( inbytes );
    byte[] aMessageDigest = md.digest();

    String outEncoded = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString( aMessageDigest );
    return( outEncoded );

This will work with "org.bouncycastle.util.encoders.Hex" following package

return new String(Hex.encode(digest));

Its in bouncycastle jar.