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Checksums (.st5, .ffp and .md5)Checksums are used for the purpose of verifying the integrity and identity of a digital copy of audio. There are many kinds of checksums but only a few that are commonly used by music traders:.md5 wholefile checksum. verifies that files are identical in every single way, and is therefore sensitive to compression setting, file format et al..st5 aka SHNtool md5. this is a checksum taken from the decompressed audio only. the advantage to this is that it works with any lossless codec at any compression setting. This is the preferred checksum type to be included with FLAC, SHN or APE files..ffp aka FLAC fingerprints. These checksums are virtually identical to .st5. some differences are explained below, under "Verifying a checksum file" and "Creating a .ffp file".For audio, I highly recommend using FLAC and including .st5 and .ffp no wholefile .md5 necessary.
