MD5 is 128 bits but why is it 32 characters?

Question

I read some docs about md5, it said that its 128 bits, but why is it 32 characters? I can't compute the characters.

• 1 byte is 8 bits
• if 1 character is 1 byte
• then 128 bits is 128/8 = 16 bytes right?

EDIT:

SHA-1 produces 160 bits, so how many characters are there?

Answer 1

MD5 yields hexadecimal digits (0-15 / 0-F), so they are four bits each. 128 / 4 = 32 characters.

SHA-1 yields hexadecimal digits too (0-15 / 0-F), so 160 / 4 = 40 characters.

(Since they're mathematical operations, most hashing functions' output is commonly represented as hex digits.)

You were probably thinking of ASCII text characters, which are 8 bits.