compare multiple md5 hashes

Sometimes you need to check a file against a md5 hash. This can be annoying. Just look at this output:

# command
md5 file.xml ~/Downloads/file.xml file2.xml

# output
MD5 (file.xml) = 389a537b7443108f610038b4e4dd549a
MD5 (/Users/james2doyle/Downloads/file.xml) = 389a537b7443108f610038b4e4dd549a
MD5 (file.xml) = 389a537b7443108f610038b4e4dd549a

Well it would be nice to not see all that junk in front of the hash. If they were lined up then it would be easier to compare them. Like so:

# command
md5-check file.xml ~/Downloads/file.xml file2.xml

# output
389a537b7443108f610038b4e4dd549a
389a537b7443108f610038b4e4dd549a
389a537b7443108f610038b4e4dd549a

Better. Here is the md5-check function I wrote to take an array of arguments and then trim out all the garabage.

function md5-check() {
  for ARG in "$@"
  do
    temp=$(md5 $ARG | cut -d'=' -f2)
    echo $temp | tr -d ' '
  done
}

It is also good for saving the output of a md5 hash:

# output into file
md5-check Downloads/logo.jpg | > check.md5

# check the contents of the check.md5 file
cat check.md5
6ed200ea7afa42e3bd90010fb14b06fd

Or you can read the file contents and compare it to the file's md5 hash:

md5-check Downloads/logo.jpg && cat check.md5

this would output like so:

6ed200ea7afa42e3bd90010fb14b06fd
6ed200ea7afa42e3bd90010fb14b06fd

Seems a bit easier to compare the results of the hashes. Although I never really use them, I think it makes sense when you are transfering large files or you are downloading files in chunks.