Calculate SHA1 fingerprint of (unsigned char *) in python

Question

I am working on a project related to Data deduplication. I need to design a fingerprint calculation module (to calculate the fingerprint of file chunk) which will take two inputs and give an output.

Input : some_module(unsigned char*buffer, uint32 buffer_length)

output: unsigned char* fingerprint

I have been asked to design a class to implement above the module. I will use hashlib but my question is How do I select proper data-types to do this in Python ?

Answer 1

How do I select proper data-types to do this in Python ?

You could use Python strings (str) for both the input and the output.

If you do, you'll be able to use hashlib.sha1() directly, without needing any datatype conversions.