Generates a deterministic checksum for an R object such that (i) if the same object is used again, then the same checksum is obtained, and (ii) if another object is used, then a different checksum is obtained with extremely high probability. In other words, it is highly unlikely that two different objects have the same checksum.
# S3 method for default
getChecksum(object, ...)The object for which a checksum should be calculated.
Additional arguments passed to digest.
Returns checksum represented as a character string.
Because getChecksum() is a generic function,
it is possible to provide custom methods for specific
classes of objects. This means that, if a certain class
specifies fields that carry auxillary data, then these
can be excluded from the checksum calculation.
For instance, assume that all objects of class 'TimestampedObject'
contain timestamps specifying when each object was created.
Then a custom getChecksum() method for this class can
first drop the timestamp and then call the default
getChecksum() function.
Internally, the digest method is used to calculate
the checksum.