How can I generate this hash?

Question

I'm new to programming (just started!) and have hit a wall recently. I am making a fansite for World of Warcraft, and I want to link to a popular site (wowhead.com). The following page shows what I'm trying to figure out: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent#ozxZ0xfcRMhuVurhstVhc0c

From what I understand, the "ozxZ0xfcRMhuVurhstVhc0c" part of the link is a hash. It contains all the information about that particular talent spec on the page, and changes whenever I add or remove points into a talent. I want to be able to recreate this part, so that I can then link my users directly to wowhead to view their talent trees, but I havn't the foggiest idea how to do that. Can anyone provide some guidance?

Answer 1

You need the original function that generates the hash. I don't think that's public though :(

Check this out: hash wikipedia

Good luck learning how to program!

Answer 2

I think it isn't a hash value, because hash values are normally one-ways values. This means you cannot (easily) restore the original information from which the hash code was generated.

Best thing would be to contact someone from wowhead.com and ask them how to interpret this information. I am sure they will help you out with some information about what type of encoding they use for the parameters. But without any help of the developers from wowhead.com it is almost impossible to figure out what information is encoded into this parameter.

I am not even sure the parameter you mentioned contains the talents of your character. Maybe it's just a session id or something like that. Take a look into the post data your browser sends to the server, it may contain a hidden field with the value you are searching for (you can use Tamper Data Firefox Addon).

Answer 3

I don't think ozxZ0xfcRMhuVurhstVhc0c is a hash value. I think it is a key (probably encrypted/encoded in some way). The server uses this key to retrieve information from it database. Since you don't have access to the database you don't know which key is needed, let alone how to encode it.

Answer 4

These hashes are hard to 'reverse engineer' unless you know how it was generated.

For example, it could be:

   s1 = "random_string-" + score;
   hash = encrypt(s1) 
   ...etc

so it is hard to get the original data back from the hash (that is the whole point anyway).

your best bet would be link to the profile that would have the latest score ..etc

Answer 5

If you go to http://www.wowhead.com/?talent and start using the talent tree you can see the mysterious code being built up in the address bar as you click on the various boxes. So it's definitely not a hash but some kind of encoded structure data.

As the code is built up as you click the logic for building the code will be in the JavaScript on that page.

So my advice is do a view source on the page, download the JavaScript files and have a look at them.

Answer 6

The first character indicates the class:

0 Druid
c Hunter
o Mage
s Paladin
b Priest
f Rogue
h Shaman
I Warlock
L Warrior
j Death Knight

The remaining characters indicate where in each tree points have been allocated. Each tree is separate, delimited by 'Z'. So if e.g. all the points are in the third tree, then the 2nd and 3rd characters will be "ZZ" indicating "end of first tree" and "end of second tree".

To generate the code for a given tree, split the talents up into pairs, going left-to-right and top-to-bottom. Each pair of talents is represented by a single character. So for example, in the DK's Blood tree segment, the first character will indicate the number of points allocated to Butchery and Subversion, and the second character will stand for Blade Barrier and Bladed Armor.

What character represents each allocation among the pair? I'm sure there's an algorithm, probably based on the ASCII character set, but all I've worked out so far is this lookup table. Find the number of points in the first talent along the top, and the number of points in the second talent along the left side. The encoded character is at the intersection.

  0 1 2 3 4 5
0 0 o b h L x
1 z k d u p t
2 M R r G T g
3 c s f I j e
4 m a w N n v
5 V q i A y E

So if our Death Knight has one point in Butchery and two points in Subversion, the first character is 'R'. If instead we put no points in those two and five in Blade Barrier, the first two characters will be "0x". Trailing '0's (all the other pairs in the tree with no points allocated) can be omitted, as can trailing 'Z' delimiters (when there are no points in the subsequent trees). For one final example, the entire code for a DK with just a single point in Toughness would be "jZ0o": "Death Knight", "End of the first tree", "No points in the first pair of talents", "one point in the first talent of the second pair".

Can anyone work out what function generates the lookup table above? There's probably a clue in the codes for the classes: in alphabetical order (except for the DK which was added to the game after the others), they correspond to a series in the lookup table of (0,0), (0,3), (1,0), (1,3), (2,0), etc.