# hash_init

(PHP 5 >= 5.1.2, PECL hash:1.1-1.5)

hash_init — Initialize an incremental hashing context

### Description

resource hash_init ( string `$algo` [, int `$options` ], string `$key` )

### Parameters

`algo`

  Name of selected hashing algorithm (i.e. "md5", "sha256", "haval160,4", etc..)

`options`

  Optional settings for hash generation, currently supports only one option: `HASH_HMAC`. When specified, the `key` must be specified.

`key`

  When `HASH_HMAC` is specified for `options` , a shared secret key to be used with the HMAC hashing method must be supplied in this parameter.

### Return Values

Returns a Hashing Context resource for use with hash_update(), hash_update_stream(), hash_update_file(), and hash_final().

### Examples

Example#1 Incremental hashing example

`<?php
$ctx = hash_init('md5');
hash_update($ctx, 'The quick brown fox ');
hash_update($ctx, 'jumped over the lazy dog.');
echo hash_final($ctx);
?>`

The above example will output:

    5c6ffbdd40d9556b73a21e63c3e0e904

### See Also

- hash()
- hash_file()
- hash_hmac()
- hash_hmac_file()