md5sums file format
The wpkg tool can be used to create an md5sums text file with md5 sums of any number of files. This file is generally used to create a list of md5 checksums on a remote computer that can be used to verify that all the files uploaded from the server are uploaded without errors (i.e. the md5 sums in the md5sums.txt file have to match all the files, most often packages, you upload.)
The file is 100% compatible with the format used by the md5sums Unix command it goes like this:
Data | Comment |
---|---|
md5 checksum | The 32 letters representing the md5sum of this file |
space | One space (0x20) |
space or asterisk | File type flag: space (0x20) for text files and asterisk (0x2A) for binary files. |
filename | The name of the file which ends with the newline characters. Any character is taken as being part of the filename except the ending spaces, carriage return (0x0D or '\r') and new line characters (0x0A or '\n'). |
The determination of whether a file is text or binary is different in the libdebpackages library than in the default Unix md5sum tool. Since we do not make use of that flag when checking md5 sums, it generally does not matter much.