MD5 (Message-Digest algorithm 5) In Informatica
MD5 is a one-way cryptographic hash function in informatica which is used to verify the data integrity. This function uses Message-Digest algorithm 5 (MD5) to generate a 128-bit hash value.
MD5 returns a 32 character string of hexadecimal digits 0-9 & a-f and returns NULL if the input is a null value. MD5 calculates the checksum of the input value which can be compared against the previously generated checksum values to detect changes.
For example if you want to identify changes by comparing more than 10 columns we can do it in expression using column to column comparison but it will cause performance Issues. Instead we can concatenate those 10 columns and use MD5 function to generate the checksum and load to target. Next time when the data comes from source we can generate the MD5 checksum again and compare with the previously generated checksum. This will be more faster and efficient than the normal way of using expression.
MD5 returns different values even if there is any change in the case. For example, MD5(informatica) and MD5(Informatica) return different values. MD5 will support only if the datatypes are String or Binary. Even if you use other datatype, PowerCenter will automatically convert the datatype to String.
<<PM Parse Warning>> [||]: operand converted to a string
… MD5(>>>>SALARY<<<< || COMMISSION_PCT )<<PM Parse Warning>> [||]: operand converted to a string
… MD5(SALARY || >>>>COMMISSION_PCT<<<< )
