Hashing ALGORITHM is a technique of OBTAINING an encrypted version from a string using a CERTAIN mathematical function. Hashing ensures that the message is securely transmitted if it is intended for a particular recipient only.

Several hashing ALGORITHMS are currently in use. Secure hash algorithms SHA1, SHA224, SHA256, SHA384, and SHA512 are defined by Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS). 

RSA algorithm defines md5 algorithm.

The hashlib module in standard library provides a common interface to many different secure hash and message digest algorithms. 

hashlib.new(name,[data]) function in the module is a generic constructor that takes the string name of the desired algorithm as its first parameter.

The hexdigest() function returns a hashed version of string in hexadecimal symbols.

Instead of using new() as generic constructor, we can use a named constructor corresponding to hash algorithm. For example for md5 hash,

The hashlib module also defines algorithms_guaranteed and algorithms_available attributes.

The algorithms_guaranteed returns a set CONTAINING the names of the hash algorithms guaranteed to be supported by this module on all platforms. 

algorithms_available is a set containing the names of the hash algorithms that are available in the running Python interpreter.