Handlebars Helper Function: encode

Calculates a cryptographic hash by using a specified algorithm. Use this helper when you need to select the hashing algorithm with named parameters.

Cryptographic hashes are one-way values and aren’t suitable for securely storing passwords or other sensitive data. For new implementations, use SHA-256 or SHA-512. Use MD5 and SHA-1 only for legacy compatibility.

Note

Availability

This helper is available in the Winter ’27 release of Marketing Cloud Next.

Syntax

1{{encode alg=ALGORITHM value=STRING_TO_ENCODE [charset=CHARSET]}}

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Description
`alg`	String	Required. The hashing algorithm to use. Specify as a named parameter with one of these values: `md5`, `sha1`, `sha256`, or `sha512`.
`value`	String	Required. The string to hash. Specify as a named parameter.
`charset`	String	The character encoding to use. Specify as a named parameter with a value of `UTF-8` or `UTF-16`. The default is `UTF-8`.

Return Value

The function returns the hash as a lowercase hexadecimal string. The length of the string depends on the selected algorithm.

The function throws a DATA_ATTRIBUTES_ERROR if a required parameter is missing or if you specify an unsupported algorithm or character encoding.

Usage Examples

This example generates a SHA-256 hash.

1{{encode alg="sha256" value="Hello World"}}

The function returns this SHA-256 hash:

1a591a6d40bf420404a011733cfb7b190d62c65bf0bcda32b57b277d9ad9f146e

This example generates a hash by using UTF-16 character encoding.

1{{encode alg="sha256" value="Hello World" charset="UTF-16"}}

The function returns:

15908535fdaa4eb2d8f5b7b5e237cd0168298eed9d9083caf7d141b3121121157