<!-- GENERATED by docs/sphinx/bin/02-reference from Digest/SHA.rs (xs_getstate). Do not edit. -->

```{index} single: getstate; Digest::SHA function
```
```{index} single: Digest::SHA::getstate; Perl function
```

# getstate

Export a `Digest::SHA` object's state as a packed binary string.

Returns the full hashing state — the intermediate hash values, buffered
partial block, block counter, and message length counters — as a binary
scalar. Pair with `_putstate` to restore the state later, for example
when resuming a long hash across processes or persisting it to disk.

Prefer the text-based `getstate` / `putstate` pair for human-readable
output or for interchange across endianness. The binary form here is
native-byte-order and tightly packed.

## Synopsis

```perl
my $blob = $sha->_getstate;
```

## What you get back

A binary string of fixed length: 116 bytes for SHA-1/224/256, 212 bytes
for SHA-384/512/512-224/512-256.

## Examples

```perl
my $sha = Digest::SHA->new(256);
$sha->add("hello ");
my $snapshot = $sha->_getstate;

my $other = Digest::SHA->new(256);
$other->_putstate($snapshot);
$other->add("world");
print $other->hexdigest;              # same as full "hello world" hash
```

```perl

## Persist a half-finished hash to disk:

open my $fh, ">", "hash.state" or die $!;
binmode $fh;
print $fh $sha->_getstate;
```

## Edge cases

- The output is binary and includes null bytes; never interpret it as
  text.
- Called on a non-`Digest::SHA` object, returns `undef`.

## Differences from upstream

Fully compatible with upstream `Digest::SHA` {{ upstream.Digest_SHA }}.

## See also

- `_putstate` — restore state produced by this method.
- `getstate` — human-readable text variant.
- `dump` / `load` — higher-level convenience wrappers around text state.