title: PHP MD5 Performance = is it processor hungry?
body: <p>md5() is usually for passwords, short strings</p>
  
  <p>but this time I wanted to encrypt (w/o needing to decrypt) a large string, like a whole article ... (not to mention i'd be needing to do this every few seconds)</p>
  
  <p>Would this be a problem? or would it take processor more work/longer to md5 a big string vs a short password? </p>
  
  <p>I read md5 is really really fast.. </p>
  
  <p>For those curious, I'm trying to generate a "signature" of the string in question</p>