looking for help with sasl digest-md5 - calculating response

[xuks]

hi all. just some background info: im new to php and im also not a programmer so go slow if replying

 

looked around the internet for any php info i can find on computing a response for the digest md5 challenge of a server and cant find a thing. here are some references:

 

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3920.txt

http://www.forumeasy.com/forums/archive/ldappro/200606/p115022055514.html

http://commons.apache.org/codec/apidocs/org/apache/commons/codec/digest/DigestUtils.html

http://www.coderanch.com/t/472230/java/java/SASL-Authentication-XMPP

 

im thinking (really just assuming) that one of the strings need to be converted into an ascii character mapping, then stripped of it's 0x value and then hashed.... but like i said, im a newbie so asking for an explanation of this in php... please dont refer to a class or function, i want to understand the steps involved too. thanks in advance!