http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=65556

jplindstrom has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi!

I would like to use MD5 hashes, but with a little shorter string length than e.g. 2dd9f2ba1f924996fa231fdceb4c6f57. The main reason is that when the hash is part of a URL, it will often make the URL longer than what fits in an e-mail.

I figure I can take the hex value and somehow transform it into a base other than hex, e.g. encoded with these characters: a-zA-Z0-9.

But the math and the best way to do this is way over my head.

Any ideas?

/J