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I'd like to write a function in Java that takes a private key and generates the address to use in a QR code. I'd like to make this , but I'm not very good with the hashing algorithms.

I've checked with https://www.bitaddress.org and what is generated on there is not the same as what I'm getting in my program.

Can anyone help me with this? Google has failed me

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Don't reinvent the wheel, use an existing library. bitcoinj for instance provides the method getPubKeyHash of the class ECKey which does what you are looking for.

Edit: getPubKeyHash does not return the human readable address directly, but can be used to create an instance of the class Address. This (as a subclass of VersionedChecksummedBytes) has in turn the method toString which presents the hash as bitcoin address.

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  • But isn't that only the hash, and not the address? And I've tried using that library, it gives me errors, like java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.slf4j.LoggerFactory, which I'll have to find myself I guess :( – user1009013 Dec 30 '13 at 21:19
  • Sorry about that, you're right. See my edit. I haven't used bitcoinj yet, so I'm afraid I can't help you with the installation. – jnnk Dec 30 '13 at 22:22
  • Everything should be included in the two jar files. Make sure you have bitcoinj.jar and bitcoinj-tools.jar in your classpath. The error you received sounds like bitcoinj-tools.jar is missing. – ScripterRon Dec 31 '13 at 1:49
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    Yup you're right. And if anyone wants to see how I did this: Address address = new Address(NetworkParameters.prodNet(), Utils.sha256hash160(new ECKey(privkey, null).getPubKey())); Then toString() gives the readable address. – user1009013 Dec 31 '13 at 11:11

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