Does anyone feel like whipping together a function to create an MD5 hash from a string? Or pointing me in the direction of some explanation of how to do it?
I'd very much like such a function, myself, and can think of several other uses for it... but I have absolutely no clue how it works.

I second that question. Because I'm too lazy to use Google.

Exactly, Kildorf. Thanks for the link. I'll see if I can figure it out.

An MD5 hash is basically (as I understand it - I only use the stuff :p) a form of encryption that cannot be decrypted. It doesn't hold the original data, but rather a 'fingerprint' of it, which is nearly unique.

It has many uses, most commonly for passwords, as Kildorf said. Rather than retrieving an encrypted password, decrypting it and then comparing to what the user entered (which is an obvious security risk), you'd just MD5 the entered password and compare it with the encrypted, and if they match, you're good to go.
Another excellent use for it is as a checksum. If you want to ensure that a file has not been altered, run an MD5 on the content you expect to be in the file and then check that before using it. Even the tiniest changes in any file are almost certain to show up as a different MD5 hash. SNES (and probably other consoles) ROMs use this for checking if it is a good dump or not. Linux distributions also commonly come with an MD5 checking tool.

/rant off.



EDIT: Eh... Just took a look at that link, and my brain started boiling around the second paragraph...
I'll keep trying to figure it out, but for the record, I'm still very interested if anyone else wanted to give it a shot ;)