Re: Wierd issue with md5sum.

[Bob Proulx]

Jon Larabee wrote:
> I posted a while back with this wierd issue to md5sum and I would like to 
> post a reply (mostly to admit my denseness) as I can now relate the cause 
> of this issue. The cause which I have now been able to replicate is, that 
> I type too fast. For this particular file for which I was using the md5sum 
> command, I immediatly cat a filename which holds the previous 
> sum I took the night before to compare it. Basically, I have gotten so 
> used to doing it that I type it out very fast. If I type fast enough, the 
> 'c' of cat ends up being typed before the output to md5sum is dropped to 
> the terminal and it is prepended onto the hash. I as I mentioned just 
> caught myself doing it, and it is indeed a timing issue, but I have been 
> able to replicate it several times. I truly apologize posting this 
> boneheaded question, and I apperciate the prompt and kind suggestions I 
> recieved. I just thought you all might get a kick out of it.

Thanks for posting a followup with the result of your investigation.

Instead of running 'cat MD5SUM' to get the results for comparison
consider instead letting md5sum do the comparison for you.

  md5sum somefile > MD5SUM

  md5sum -c MD5SUM
  somefile:  OK

Bob