Re: DSA and Signature

Jan Luehe (luehe@laguna.eng.sun.com)
Thu, 22 Apr 1999 10:16:59 -0700 (PDT)

Message-Id: <199904221716.KAA19539@laguna.eng.sun.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 10:16:59 -0700 (PDT)
From: Jan Luehe <luehe@laguna.eng.sun.com>
Subject: Re: DSA and Signature
To: java-security@java.sun.com, leachbj@aba.net.au

Bernard:

> I was just wondering why when the algorithm "DSA" is passed
> to the Signature getInstance() method it performs a lookup
> for the algorithm "SHA/DSA"?
>
> In the Signature.getInstance() method there is;
>
> if (algorithm.equalsIgnoreCase("DSA"))
> algorithm = new String("SHA/DSA");
>
> But the JCA specification makes no mention of this! It
> does specify the correct name for the algorithm is SHAwithDSA
> but there is no mention of SHA/DSA.

The lines of code you mentioned have changed in the JDK 1.3 workspace.
They now read:

if (algorithm.equalsIgnoreCase("DSA"))
algorithm = new String("SHA1withDSA");

to be consistent with our "standard" names.

Jan