Thank you, yes I have seen that Wikipedia article and it is very interesting, unfortunately, as far as i could see (or understand), there is no discussion of the "Base" output of the message digest. This is what I am most interested in. I get the feeling it is probably much easier than I am making it, unfortunately I'm just not getting it and am looking for some expert teachings!...


To clarify my original post, I'll paraphrase from another old post I was reading on another forum and someone asked a similar question and I am still looking to understand it. Why when a .gif file's SHA1 message digest is generated it can result in these different outputs:

SHA1 - DZ2UNZISKKGDLT4TBXCYZWVBL3NAMCM7 (Base32)
SHA1 - 3161bf6ac6c9c49df0eba30d7db7d1e5713e7a76 (file as Text)
SHA1 - 1e7546e512528c35cf930dc58cdaa15eda06099f (file as Binary)

Are these 3 outputs related? Can I convert the Base32 into one of the others WITHOUT the original file?