BMChecksum is a program to hash files recursively using standard algorithms and then store those codes in relative directories. At a later date, the original files can then be verified against the calculated checksums to confirm the byte integrity of the processed files. The language chosen to produce the modern version of this project is Python and will be cross-platform with Windows and Linux at a minimum.
This new edition is based on a legacy software product I created long ago but never released. The original application was written as a Java GUI program and has been used for a number of years. A separate Bash script was also created to achieve the same purpose from the command-line. The codebases of both are currently outdated though and it is the purpose of this repository to create a modern version of this concept. Any versions produced here will be compatible with past checksum creations or offer a way to upgrade older hash codes to the newest standards. The latter will be achieved without requiring any checksum recalculations.
The latest version of the original software application was compatible with checksum version 1.1, which used the MD5 and SHA1 hashing algorithms. It can be assumed that early official versions of this program will be compatible with this standard, despite the flaws that exist with these algorithms today.
No packaged releases of the application have been created yet. However, the latest stable version (and indeed all versions of the application) can be found under the tags section of this repository here:-
https://github.com/CyberArchitect777/bmchecksum/tags
To run version 0.3.0, the standard Python 3 interpreter must be installed and available. The BMChecksum compressed archive should then be extracted to a new directory. The follwing files should be run based on the application that the user wishes to run.
python3 bmchecksum-cli.py - To run the command-line version of the program (best done from a command-line interpreter). As the command-line version works via parameters, the instructions printed by this command will help the user proceed further.
python3 bmchecksum-tkgui.py- To run the Tkinter GUI version.
python3 bmchecksum-kivygui.py - To run the Kivy GUI version. An additional set of requirements must be installed to use this via pip install -r requirements-kivygui.txt.
To acquire and run the latest source code, the following can be done.
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If needed, download Git and install it.
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If needed, download the standard Python 3 interpreter and install it.
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Create a new directory and open a command-line terminal in this location.
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Run the following to download this game repository:-
git clone https://github.com/CyberArchitect777/bmchecksum.git -
From the project directory, run the following as a starting point:
python3 bmchecksum-cli.pyor
python3 bmchecksum-tkgui.pyor
python3 bmchecksum-kivygui.py
The GitHub repository is here
The main development branch is located in the root directory. However, branches tagged in the versions/ directory contained stable editions. All versions of this software are tagged and can also be acquired with Git. An example of how to do this with the v0.3.0 codebase is:-
git checkout v0.3.0
This program was created using the following technologies:
- Python 3
0.3.0 - 10th of May, 2026
- Kivy GUI version completed. Like the Tkinter version, it is feature complete with the command-line version.
0.2.0 - 24th of April, 2025
- First Tkinter GUI version built. It is feature complete with the command-line version.
0.1.0 - 23rd of March, 2025
- Initial release of command-line edition.
Version 1.1
Having checksum files with the same extension as the original files proved problematic and thus the extensions .md5 and .sha1 was added to each checksum file. To separate this version of the checksum system with the original, the checksum folders were renamed bm11-md5sums and bm11-sha1sums. An upgrade facility has been built into every bmchecksum tool to bring old checksums up to this version.
Version 1.0
In version 1.0, BMChecksum stored checksum files in the base directory being checksummed. If we assume this folder is called "home", then the directories bm-md5sums and bm-sha1sums were created inside this. A file clone of "home" is then created in the two checksum folders minus bm11-md5sums and bm11-sha1sums, although the content of the files created is only a md5 or sha1 checksum.
- Github Copilot and later Claude Code for rapid development.
- ChatGPT for technical assistance and image generation.
- Black for code formatting.
This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.