Mask generation function (original) (raw)

A mask generation function (MGF) is a cryptographic primitive similar to a cryptographic hash function except that while a hash function's output has a fixed size, a MGF supports output of a variable length. In this respect, a MGF can be viewed as a single-use XOR function: it can accept input of any length and process it to produce output of any length. Mask generation functions are completely deterministic: for any given input and any desired output length the output is always the same.