diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'docs')
| -rw-r--r-- | docs/hazmat/primitives/constant-time.rst | 13 |
1 files changed, 8 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/docs/hazmat/primitives/constant-time.rst b/docs/hazmat/primitives/constant-time.rst index 632e7c68..c6fcb3a3 100644 --- a/docs/hazmat/primitives/constant-time.rst +++ b/docs/hazmat/primitives/constant-time.rst @@ -19,8 +19,10 @@ about the timing attacks on KeyCzar and Java's ``MessageDigest.isEqual()``. .. function:: bytes_eq(a, b) - Compare ``a`` and ``b`` to one another in constant time if they are of the - same length. + Compares ``a`` and ``b`` with one another. If ``a`` and ``b`` have + different lengths, this returns ``False`` immediately. Otherwise it + compares them in a way that takes the same amount of time, regardless of + how many characters are the same between the two. .. doctest:: @@ -30,9 +32,10 @@ about the timing attacks on KeyCzar and Java's ``MessageDigest.isEqual()``. >>> constant_time.bytes_eq(b"foo", b"bar") False - :param a bytes: The left-hand side. - :param b bytes: The right-hand side. - :returns boolean: True if ``a`` has the same bytes as ``b``. + :param bytes a: The left-hand side. + :param bytes b: The right-hand side. + :returns bool: ``True`` if ``a`` has the same bytes as ``b``, otherwise + ``False``. .. _`Coda Hale's blog post`: http://codahale.com/a-lesson-in-timing-attacks/ |