Glossary

computed identifier

An identifier that is generated from the object’s data. Multiple groups who generated computed identifiers the same way will generate the same identifier for the same underlying data.

digest, ga4gh_digest

A digest is a digital fingerprint of a block of binary data. A digest is always the same size, regardless of the size of the input data. It is statistically extremely unlikely for two fingerprints to match when the underlying data are distinct.

serialization

The process of converting an object in memory into a stream of bytes that may be sent via the network, saved in a database, or written to a file.