> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.pentaho.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.pentaho.com/pdia-data-integration/9.3-data-integration/pdi-transformation-steps-reference-overview/add-a-checksum/options-add-a-checksum.md).

# Options

The Add a Checksum step has the following options:

| Option                          | Description                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              |
| ------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Step name**                   | Specify the unique name of the Add a Checksum step on the canvas. You can customize the name or leave it as the default.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 |
| **Type**                        | <p>Specify the type of checksum you want to calculate. The available types include:</p><ul><li>CRC32 - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_redundancy_check">32-bit Cyclic Redundancy Check</a></li><li>ADLER 32 - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adler-32">Checksum Algorithm by Mark Adler</a></li><li>MD5 - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5">Message Digest Algorithm 5</a></li><li>SHA-1 - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-1">Secure Hash Algorithm 1</a></li><li>SHA-256 - <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-256">Secure Hash Algorithm 2</a></li></ul> |
| **Result type**                 | <p>If you specified MD5, SHA-1, or SHA-256 in the <strong>Type</strong> option above, you can select one of these result types:</p><ul><li><strong>String</strong></li><li><strong>Hexadecimal</strong></li><li><strong>Binary</strong></li></ul>                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        |
| **Result field**                | Specify the name of the field that contains the checksum.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                |
| **Compatibility Mode**          | Select for backward compatibility of the step with transformations created before PDI version 4.2.0 and its inherent hexadecimal encoding issue.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         |
| **Old Checksum Behaviour Mode** | <p>If checked, the incoming fields will be treated as strings</p><p><strong>Note:</strong> A binary field type will produce the string representation of a byte array.</p><p>If unchecked, all incoming fields will be treated as byte arrays.</p>                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       |
| **Field**                       | In the table, specify which fields you want read into the transformation from the CSV file.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              |
| **Get Fields**                  | Click **Get Fields** to have the step populate the table with fields derived from the source file. All fields identified by this step will be added to the table.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        |


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