PHP - Generate an 8 character hash from an integer

Question

Is there a way to take any number, from say, 1 to 40000 and generate an 8 character hash?

I was thinking of using base_convert but couldn't figure out a way to force it to be an 8 character hash.

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.

Answer 1

Why don't you just run md5 and take the first 8 characters?

Because you are wanting a hash, it doesn't matter whether portions are discarded, but rather that the same input will produce the same hash.

$hash = substr(md5($num), 0, 8);

Answer 2

there are many ways ...

one example

$x = ?
$s = '';
for ($i=0;$i<8;++$i)
{
    $s .= chr( $x%26 + ord('a') );
    $x /= 26;
}

Answer 3

$hash = substr(hash("sha256",$num), 0, 8);

Answer 4

>>> math.exp(math.log(40000)/8)
3.7606030930863934

Therefore you need 4 digit-symbols to produce a 8-character hash from 40000:

sprintf("%08s", base_convert($n, 10, 4))

Answer 5

So you want to convert a 6 digit number into a 8 digit string reproducibly?

sprintf("%08d", $number);

Certainly a hash is not reversible - but without a salt / IV it might be a bit easy to hack. A better solution might be:

substr(sha1($number . $some_secret),0,8);

C.