openssl dgst -sha256 -binary

[alexanderkent]

Useful tool but wouldn't it be better do it inline instead of input redirection? Perhaps something like RIPEMD160(SHA256(s, 65, 0), SHA256_DIGEST_LENGTH, rmd + 1) to encode the coin using openssl headers.

[matja]

I meant the example on the main page of echo'ing a string through openssl dgst -sha256 -binary as a means for creating a private key, to purely be a simple functional example of using the output of an external program for the private key data, rather than an actual recommendation of how to invoke bitcoin-tool in order to create private keys.

I agree that if this was a common method of invoking bitcoin-tool then it would be better (more efficient) to do the SHA256 hash inside bitcoin-tool itself rather than in a subshell, but I want to follow the Unix philosophy of separating the tasks of Bitcoin and hashing into separate programs (bitcoin-tool and openssl in that example), especially because I think it would be better practice to use either purely random data or output from a key derivation function such as scrypt.

If anything I believe that the example should be removed and replaced with a simple and secure example which can be used in typical usage, rather than the rather theoretical example as it stands now.