crypto/sha256

Crypto

import "crypto/sha256"

Implements SHA-224 and SHA-256 hash algorithms for checksums and integrity verification.

Example

package main

import (
    "crypto/sha256"
    "fmt"
)

func main() {
    h := sha256.Sum256([]byte("hello world"))
    fmt.Printf("%x\n", h)
}

Key Types & Functions

Sum256NewNew224

About crypto/sha256

The crypto/sha256 package (imported as crypto/sha256) belongs to the Crypto category of Go packages. Implements SHA-224 and SHA-256 hash algorithms for checksums and integrity verification.

Go's standard library is one of the language's greatest strengths, providing production-ready implementations for networking, cryptography, encoding, I/O, and more. The crypto/sha256 package follows Go's philosophy of simplicity and composability — small, focused packages that combine through interfaces like io.Reader and io.Writer.

When using crypto/sha256 in production, follow Go best practices: handle errors explicitly, use context for cancellation and timeouts, prefer composition over inheritance, and write table-driven tests. The Go documentation at pkg.go.dev provides comprehensive API references and examples for every exported type and function.

Related Packages

encoding/hex io