Re: Hash algorithm choice

Linus Torvalds [off-list ref] writes:

If youlimit the hash size to 20 bytes, there are almost no changes 
necessary.

You'd need to hijack the 'SHA1_Init/SHA1_Update/SHA1_Final' functions, of 
course, and you'd likely want to rename them (and eventually a lot of 
other functions too), but that renaming is mechanical and isn't even 
needed for proper working.

Now, if you would ever want to extend the _size_ of the hash, that's a 
much much bigger problem, but if you're ok with just changing the hash and 
then truncating the result to 20 bytes (ie kind of like sha-512-160), or 
you're ok with limiting yourself to 20-byte hashes like REIPMD-160, the 
size of the changes should be minimal.

Just in case Jerome really wants to go further, "almost no changes" and
"minimal" refers to the fact that we have a few hard-coded hash values
known to the code, such as the object name for an empty blob and an empty
tree.