Helpers

Constant-time comparison

int sodium_memcmp(const void * const b1_, const void * const b2_, size_t len);

When a comparison involves secret data (e.g. key, authentication tag), is it critical to use a constant-time comparison function in order to mitigate side-channel attacks.

The sodium_memcmp() function can be used for this purpose.

The function returns 0 if the len bytes pointed to by b1_ match the len bytes pointed to by b2_. Otherwise, it returns -1.

Note: sodium_memcmp() is not a lexicographic comparator and is not a generic replacement for memcmp().

Hexadecimal encoding/decoding

char *sodium_bin2hex(char * const hex, const size_t hex_maxlen,
                     const unsigned char * const bin, const size_t bin_len);

The sodium_bin2hex() function converts bin_len bytes stored at bin into a hexadecimal string.

The string is stored into hex and includes a nul byte (\0) terminator.

hex_maxlen is the maximum number of bytes that the function is allowed to write starting at hex. It should be at least bin_len * 2 + 1.

The function returns hex on success, or NULL on overflow. It evaluates in constant time for a given size.

int sodium_hex2bin(unsigned char * const bin, const size_t bin_maxlen,
                   const char * const hex, const size_t hex_len,
                   const char * const ignore, size_t * const bin_len,
                   const char ** const hex_end);

The sodium_hex2bin() function parses a hexadecimal string hex and converts it to a byte sequence.

hex does not have to be nul terminated, as the number of characters to parse is supplied via the hex_len parameter.

ignore is a string of characters to skip. For example, the string ": " allows columns and spaces to be present at any locations in the hexadecimal string. These characters will just be ignored. As a result, "69:FC", "69 FC", "69 : FC" and "69FC" will be valid inputs, and will produce the same output.

ignore can be set to NULL in order to disallow any non-hexadecimal character.

bin_maxlen is the maximum number of bytes to put into bin.

The parser stops when a non-hexadecimal, non-ignored character is found or when bin_maxlen bytes have been written.

The function returns -1 if more than bin_maxlen bytes would be required to store the parsed string. It returns 0 on success and sets hex_end, if it is not NULL, to a pointer to the character following the last parsed character.

It evaluates in constant time for a given length and format.

Incrementing large numbers

void sodium_increment(unsigned char *n, const size_t nlen);

The sodium_increment() function takes a pointer to an arbitrary-long unsigned number, and increments it.

It runs in constant-time for a given length, and considers the number to be encoded in little-endian format.

sodium_increment() can be used to increment nonces in constant time.

This function was introduced in libsodium 1.0.4.