[Tutor] Clarification questions about how Python uses references.

[boB Stepp]

On Thu, Jun 24, 2021 at 6:46 PM Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 24 Jun 2021 12:36:33 -0500, boB Stepp <robertvstepp at gmail.com>
> declaimed the following:
>
> >Then I suppose "MD5" and similar terms refer to the algorithm being
> >employed to come up with this mapping of values.
> >
>         MD5 is more used to create a value that can be used to verify a file
> has not been corrupted (by rerunning the MD5 algorithm on the file and
> comparing the message-digest value to that provided [independently] by the
> supplier of said file). It isn't used to "index" any structure.

The Wikipedia entry on MD5 states, "The MD5 message-digest algorithm
is a widely used *hash function* [my emphasis] producing a 128-bit
hash value."  Looking up "hash function", the Wikipedia article on it
states, "A hash function is any function that can be used to map data
of arbitrary size to fixed-size values. The values returned by a hash
function are called hash values, hash codes, digests, or simply
hashes. The values are usually used to index a fixed-size table called
a hash table."  This seems to fit in perfectly well with what Cameron
stated and my usage above seems to be correct.  The "index" in this
instance would be for the entire file that the MD5 value was computed
for.  This may be (ignorant?) quibbling on my part, but it seems that
we spend much of our time on these mailing lists trying to be
uber-precise in our language usage.  I guess I am either falling into
this trap or am engaging in a good thing?  ~(:>))

boB Stepp