C# MD5 hasher example

c++hashmd5

Edit: I've retitled this to an example as the code works as expected.

I am trying to copy a file, get a MD5 hash, then delete the copy. I am doing this to avoid process locks on the original file, which another app writes to. However, I am getting a lock on the file I've copied.

File.Copy(pathSrc, pathDest, true);

String md5Result;
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
MD5 md5Hasher = MD5.Create();

using (FileStream fs = File.OpenRead(pathDest))
{
    foreach(Byte b in md5Hasher.ComputeHash(fs))
        sb.Append(b.ToString("x2").ToLower());
}

md5Result = sb.ToString();

File.Delete(pathDest);

I am then getting a 'process cannot access the file' exception on File.Delete()'.

I would expect that with the using statement, the filestream would be closed nicely. I have also tried declaring the filestream separately, removing using, and putting fs.Close() and fs.Dispose() after the read.

After this, I commented out the actually md5 computation, and the code excutes, with the file being deleted, so it looks like it's something to do with ComputeHash(fs).

Best Solution

Import the name space 

using System.Security.Cryptography;

Here is the function that returns you md5 hash code. You need to pass the string as parameter.

public static string GetMd5Hash(string input)
{
        MD5 md5Hash = MD5.Create();
        // Convert the input string to a byte array and compute the hash.
        byte[] data = md5Hash.ComputeHash(Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(input));

        // Create a new Stringbuilder to collect the bytes
        // and create a string.
        StringBuilder sBuilder = new StringBuilder();

        // Loop through each byte of the hashed data 
        // and format each one as a hexadecimal string.
        for (int i = 0; i < data.Length; i++)
        {
            sBuilder.Append(data[i].ToString("x2"));
        }

        // Return the hexadecimal string.
        return sBuilder.ToString();
}
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