Perl: Checksum of complex data-structure

Is there a package/function in Perl that gives me in an easy way

• a short information (e.g. a number, short string)
• like a hashvalue/checksum (e.g. MD5)
• with good distinction (e.g. cryptographic hash like MDx, SHAx)
• representing the content of a complex datastructure (e.g. hash of arrays of hashes).

Best idea I have in mind is

1. serialize my structure to a string (e.g. with Data::Dumper)

2. Hash over the string with MDx

But maybe there is some more elegant way.

In the past, I used the Data::Dumper (with sorted keys, as pointed by @mob) + Digest::MD5 approach for creating checksums of complex data structures. In my case, the purpose was to compare two or more data structures for equality.

(Very) Simple snippet:

use Data::Dumper qw( Dumper ) ;
use Digest::MD5 qw( md5_hex) ;

sub digest {
    my $data = shift ;
    local $Data::Dumper::Sortkeys = 1;
    return md5_hex( Dumper($data) ) ;
}

Synopsis:

my $cplx_data_checksum = digest({ 
    c => 1 , 
    b => [ 1 , { a => 2 } ]
}) ;

For insights about Digest algo's speed please take a look to the Digest Perl module at https://metacpan.org/pod/Digest#Digest-speed

Hope this helps