Using BCrypt To Create And Check Hashed Passwords

The BCrypt library is used under the hood by gems like Devise in order to work with passwords securely. You can use it to salt and hash a plain text password. You can also use it to check whether an encrypted password matches some input password.

> include BCrypt
=> Object

> encrypted_pass = Password.create('password')
=> "$2a$10$te3Y8wdSXf8/gWDeSP5z9eut7alThnuTvq1SvgQyJ1C57F.qit1uq"

> Password.new(encrypted_pass) == "not_my_pass"
=> false

> Password.new(encrypted_pass) == "password"
=> true

The Password.create method will salt and hash the given password. The resulting encrypted password, if it is an instance of Password, can be directly compared to a string. For good measure, in case the encrypted password is a string, you can wrap it in a call to Password.new to ensure you are working with a Password instance.