Identicon

Generate a unique, symmetric 5×5 “identicon” PNG from any input string, using Elixir and Erlang’s EGD library.

About

Identicon turns any text—like a name or email—into a small, colorful 5×5 image. It first hashes the text with MD5, then uses that hash to build a symmetrical grid, filling in even‑numbered squares and leaving the others blank. The end result is a unique, consistent icon you can use for avatars or identification—no image uploads needed.

Prerequisites

• Elixir
• Erlang
• You can download from here as well: https://elixir-lang.org/install.html

Installation

From Hex

If available in Hex, the package can be installed by adding identicon to your list of dependencies in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    {:identicon, "~> 0.1.0"}
  ]
end

Documentation can be generated with ExDoc and published on HexDocs. Once published, the docs can be found at https://hexdocs.pm/identicon.

From Source

Clone this repository

• Open your terminal
• go to the directory that you want to clone this project
• Run the following command to clone this project

git clone https://github.com/your‑username/identicon.git

Replace your-username with your github username.

Install dependencies

go to the project's root directory

cd Identicon

fetch and compile dependencies

mix dept.get
mix dep.compile

Generate Identicon

Start an interactive Elixir shell

iex -S mix

Inside the IEX shell you can call the Identicon function with your own string

iex> Identicon.main("blue")

Your identicon will be generated based on your string and will be saved as a PNG file in the project's root directory.

You can also see some Identicon sample in your project root.

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45f21a7 (Identicon project)