6.4 Invoking guix hash

The guix hash command computes the SHA256 hash of a file. It is primarily a convenience tool for anyone contributing to the distribution: it computes the cryptographic hash of a file, which can be used in the definition of a package (see Defining Packages).

The general syntax is:

guix hash option file

guix hash has the following option:

--format=fmt

-f fmt

Write the hash in the format specified by fmt.

Supported formats: nix-base32, base32, base16 (hex and hexadecimal can be used as well).

If the --format option is not specified, guix hash will output the hash in nix-base32. This representation is used in the definitions of packages.

--recursive

-r

Compute the hash on file recursively.

In this case, the hash is computed on an archive containing file, including its children if it is a directory. Some of file’s meta-data is part of the archive; for instance, when file is a regular file, the hash is different depending on whether file is executable or not. Meta-data such as time stamps has no impact on the hash (see Invoking guix archive).