[erlang-questions] checksum calculation

[Richard O'Keefe]

On 7 Apr 2009, at 8:55 pm, Gamoto wrote:

> Richard,
> Suppose you have an industrial machine which send messages following  
> by the checksum calculated by the xor of all bytes, what can I do  
> with your advices ;-)

Surely it is obvious that if you are exchanging messages
with an existing system that uses a particular 'checksum'
scheme, THAT is the checksum scheme that you use?

It only makes sense to talk about what would be "a better
[solution]" when it is _possible_ for you to deploy it at
_both_ ends of the communication channel.

If you have such a machine, I suggest that
(a) you find out whether it is possible to select or program
     a different algorithm in it, and
(b) you try to get some idea of what kinds of errors are
     possible between that machine and your computer(s),
     so that you know whether you should
(c) worry a lot about uncaught errors, or not.


>> It all depends on what your data are like and what
>> kinds of errors you plausibly need to protect against,
>> really.
>>
>>
>
>