I have usually found that either the base class or file usually have the
details for usage. I admit the digest class docs are a bit sparse but they
are there.

http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib/libdoc/digest/rdoc/classes/Digest/Class.html

It shows an example for both a string and a file. As for the require, I
usually just require the file or folder at the base of the list of files. In
this case it is 'digest'.

On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 2:00 AM, msoulier <msoulier@[...].com>  wrote:

>  I was recently looking to compute a sha1 hash in ruby, and l luckily
>  google turned up a quick example because I found the digest docs here
>  http://www.ruby-doc.org/stdlib/ very cryptic and difficult to read.
> 
>  How am I to interpret what I see in the digest api docs? There's no
>  example, not even an obvious entry point. How do I look at that doc
>  and know what I need to "require" and then what classes I'll be using
>  to accomplish my task?
> 
>  Luckily this dude and google to the rescue
>  http://snippets.dzone.com/posts/show/83.
> 
>  Mike
> 
>