LINFO

Checksum Definition



A checksum is a simple type of redundancy check that is used to detect errors in data.

Errors frequently occur in data when it is written to a disk, transmitted across a network or otherwise manipulated. The errors are typically very small, for example, a single incorrect bit, but even such small errors can greatly affect the quality of data, and even make it useless.

In its simplest form, a checksum is created by calculating the binary values in a packet or other block of data using some algorithm and storing the results with the data. When the data is retrieved from memory or received at the other end of a network, a new checksum is calculated and compared with the existing checksum. A non-match indicates an error; a match does not necessarily mean the absence of errors, but only that the simple algorithm was not able to detect any.

Among the types of errors that cannot be detected by simple checksum algorithms are reordering of the bytes, inserting or deleting zero-valued bytes and multiple errors that cancel each other out. Fortunately, however, these errors can be detected with more sophisticated methods, such as cyclic redundancy checks (CRC). Although such techniques have the disadvantage of requiring greater system resources (in the form of processor time and bandwidth), this has become an increasingly unimportant consideration in recent years as a result of the continued increases in processor speed and bandwidth.






Created November 4, 2005.
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