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secretbase

  ________  
 /\ sec   \
/  \ ret   \
\  /  base /
 \/_______/

Fast and memory-efficient streaming hash functions, binary/text encoding and serialization.

Hashes strings and raw vectors directly. Stream hashes files which can be larger than memory, as well as in-memory objects through R’s serialization mechanism.

Implements the SHA-256, SHA-3 and ‘Keccak’ cryptographic hash functions, SHAKE256 extendable-output function (XOF), ‘SipHash’ pseudo-random function, base64 and base58 encoding, ‘CBOR’ and ‘JSON’ serialization.

FunctionPurpose
sha3() sha256() keccak()Cryptographic hashes
shake256()Extendable-output function (XOF)
siphash13()Keyed, fast pseudo-random function
base64enc() base64dec()Base64 encoding
base58enc() base58dec()Base58 encoding with checksum
cborenc() cbordec()CBOR serialization
jsonenc() jsondec()JSON serialization

Installation

install.packages("secretbase")

Get Started

library(secretbase)

Hash Functions

SHA-3

Specify bits as 224, 256, 384 or 512:

sha3("secret base")
#> [1] "a721d57570e7ce366adee2fccbe9770723c6e3622549c31c7cab9dbb4a795520"
sha3("secret base", convert = FALSE)
#>  [1] a7 21 d5 75 70 e7 ce 36 6a de e2 fc cb e9 77 07 23 c6 e3 62 25 49 c3 1c 7c
#> [26] ab 9d bb 4a 79 55 20
sha3("秘密の基地の中", bits = 512L)
#> [1] "e30cdc73f6575c40d55b5edc8eb4f97940f5ca491640b41612e02a05f3e59dd9c6c33f601d8d7a8e2ca0504b8c22f7bc69fa8f10d7c01aab392781ff4ae1e610"

SHA-256

sha256("secret base")
#> [1] "1951c1ca3d50e95e6ede2b1c26fefd0f0e8eba1e51a837f8ccefb583a2b686fe"

For HMAC, pass a character string or raw vector to key:

sha256("secret base", key = "秘密の基地の中")
#> [1] "ec58099ab21325e792bef8f1aafc0a70e1a7227463cfc410931112705d753392"

Keccak

keccak("secret base", bits = 384L)
#> [1] "c82bae24175676028e44aa08b9e2424311847adb0b071c68c7ea47edf049b0e935ddd2fc7c499333bccc08c7eb7b1203"

SHAKE256

An extendable-output function (XOF). Specify arbitrary bits. May be used as deterministic random seeds for R’s pseudo random number generators (RNGs) - use convert = NA for integer output:

shake256("秘密の基地の中", bits = 32L, convert = NA)
#> [1] 2000208511

For use in parallel computing, this is a valid method for reducing to a negligible probability that RNGs in each process may overlap. This may be especially suitable when first-best alternatives such as using recursive streams are too expensive or unable to preserve reproducibility. [1]

SipHash

SipHash-1-3 is a fast, keyed pseudo-random function. Pass to key up to 16 bytes (128 bits):

siphash13("secret base", key = "秘密の基地の中")
#> [1] "a1f0a751892cc7dd"

Streaming

All hash functions above support streaming of R objects and files.

R Objects

Character strings and raw vectors are hashed directly. All other objects are stream hashed using R serialization:

  • memory-efficient as performed without allocation of the serialized object
  • portable as uses serialization version 3, big-endian representation, skipping headers
sha3(data.frame(a = 1, b = 2), bits = 224L)
#> [1] "03778aad53bff7dd68caab94374bba6f07cea235fb97b3c52cf612e9"
sha3(NULL)
#> [1] "b3e37e4c5def1bfb2841b79ef8503b83d1fed46836b5b913d7c16de92966dcee"

Files

Files are read and hashed incrementally, accepting files larger than memory:

file <- tempfile(); cat("secret base", file = file)
sha3(file = file)
#> [1] "a721d57570e7ce366adee2fccbe9770723c6e3622549c31c7cab9dbb4a795520"

Encoding

Base64

base64enc("secret base")
#> [1] "c2VjcmV0IGJhc2U="
base64dec(base64enc("secret base"))
#> [1] "secret base"
base64enc(as.raw(c(1L, 2L, 4L)), convert = FALSE)
#> [1] 41 51 49 45
base64dec(base64enc(data.frame()), convert = NA)
#> data frame with 0 columns and 0 rows

Base58

Includes a 4-byte checksum (double SHA-256), verified on decode:

base58enc("secret base")
#> [1] "4EFRHUcj9ookBnv1yX9Gt"
base58dec(base58enc("secret base"))
#> [1] "secret base"
base58enc(as.raw(c(1L, 2L, 4L)), convert = FALSE)
#> [1] 33 44 56 41 66 71 55 64 77
base58dec(base58enc(data.frame()), convert = NA)
#> data frame with 0 columns and 0 rows

Serialization

CBOR

Encode R objects to CBOR (RFC 8949) - a compact binary format. Supports integers, doubles, strings, raw vectors, logical, NULL, and lists (named lists become maps):

cborenc(list(a = 1L, b = "hello", c = TRUE))
#>  [1] a3 61 61 01 61 62 65 68 65 6c 6c 6f 61 63 f5
cbordec(cborenc(list(a = 1L, b = "hello", c = TRUE)))
#> $a
#> [1] 1
#> 
#> $b
#> [1] "hello"
#> 
#> $c
#> [1] TRUE

JSON

Minimal JSON encoder/decoder for HTTP API request/response bodies:

jsonenc(list(name = "John", age = 30L, active = TRUE))
#> [1] "{\"name\":\"John\",\"age\":30,\"active\":true}"
jsondec('{"name": "John", "age": 30, "active": true}')
#> $name
#> [1] "John"
#> 
#> $age
#> [1] 30
#> 
#> $active
#> [1] TRUE

Implementation

The SHA-3 Secure Hash Standard was published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2015 at doi:10.6028/NIST.FIPS.202. SHA-3 is based on the Keccak algorithm, designed by G. Bertoni, J. Daemen, M. Peeters and G. Van Assche.

The SHA-256 Secure Hash Standard was published by NIST in 2002 at https://csrc.nist.gov/publications/fips/fips180-2/fips180-2.pdf.

The SHA-256, SHA-3, Keccak, and base64 implementations are based on those by the ‘Mbed TLS’ Trusted Firmware Project at https://www.trustedfirmware.org/projects/mbed-tls.

The SipHash family of pseudo-random functions by Jean-Philippe Aumasson and Daniel J. Bernstein was published in 2012 at https://ia.cr/2012/351. [2]

The SipHash implementation is based on that of Daniele Nicolodi, David Rheinsberg and Tom Gundersen at https://github.com/c-util/c-siphash, which is in turn based on the reference implementation by Jean-Philippe Aumasson and Daniel J. Bernstein released to the public domain at https://github.com/veorq/SipHash.

The base58 implementation is based on ‘libbase58’ by Luke Dashjr at https://github.com/luke-jr/libbase58.

The CBOR implementation follows RFC 8949, “Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR)”, available at https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8949.

The JSON implementation is not fully compliant with RFC 8259, “The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data Interchange Format”, available at https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8259.

References

[1] Pierre L’Ecuyer, David Munger, Boris Oreshkin and Richard Simard (2017), “Random numbers for parallel computers: Requirements and methods, with emphasis on GPUs”, Mathematics and Computers in Simulation, Vol. 135, May 2017, pp. 3-17 doi:10.1016/j.matcom.2016.05.00.

[2] Jean-Philippe Aumasson and Daniel J. Bernstein (2012), “SipHash: a fast short-input PRF”, Paper 2012/351, Cryptology ePrint Archive, https://ia.cr/2012/351.

Links

◈ secretbase R package: https://shikokuchuo.net/secretbase/

Mbed TLS website: https://www.trustedfirmware.org/projects/mbed-tls SipHash streaming implementation: https://github.com/c-util/c-siphash SipHash reference implementation: https://github.com/veorq/SipHash libbase58: https://github.com/luke-jr/libbase58 CBOR RFC 8949: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8949 JSON RFC 8259: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8259

Please note that this project is released with a Contributor Code of Conduct. By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.

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Version

Install

install.packages('secretbase')

Monthly Downloads

13,281

Version

1.2.0

License

MIT + file LICENSE

Issues

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Maintainer

Charlie Gao

Last Published

February 5th, 2026

Functions in secretbase (1.2.0)

base64enc

Base64 Encode
jsondec

JSON Decode
base64dec

Base64 Decode
base58dec

Base58 Decode
keccak

Keccak Cryptographic Hash Algorithms
cborenc

CBOR Encode
cbordec

CBOR Decode
secretbase-package

secretbase: Cryptographic Hash, Extendable-Output and Binary/Text Encoding Functions
jsonenc

JSON Encode
sha3

SHA-3 Cryptographic Hash Algorithms
sha256

SHA-256 Cryptographic Hash Algorithm
base58enc

Base58 Encode
siphash13

SipHash Pseudorandom Function
shake256

SHAKE256 Extendable Output Function