def md5(fname):
    hash_md5 = hashlib.md5()
    with open(fname, "rb") as f:
        for chunk in iter(lambda: f.read(4096), b""):
            hash_md5.update(chunk)
    return hash_md5.hexdigest()

def file_as_bytes(file):
    with file:
        return file.read()

print hashlib.md5(file_as_bytes(open(full_path, 'rb'))).hexdigest()

import hashlib
[(fname, hashlib.md5(file_as_bytes(open(fname, 'rb'))).digest()) for fname in fnamelst]

import hashlib
[(fname, hashlib.sha256(file_as_bytes(open(fname, 'rb'))).digest()) for fname in fnamelst]

import hashlib

def hash_bytestr_iter(bytesiter, hasher, ashexstr=False):
    for block in bytesiter:
        hasher.update(block)
    return (hasher.hexdigest() if ashexstr else hasher.digest())

def file_as_blockiter(afile, blocksize=65536):
    with afile:
        block = afile.read(blocksize)
        while len(block) > 0:
            yield block
            block = afile.read(blocksize)


[(fname, hash_bytestr_iter(file_as_blockiter(open(fname, 'rb')), hashlib.md5()))
    for fname in fnamelst]

[(fname, hash_bytestr_iter(file_as_blockiter(open(fname, 'rb')), hashlib.sha256()))
    for fname in fnamelst]

$ ./sum_methods.py
crc32_mmap(filename) 0.0241742134094
crc32_read(filename) 0.0219960212708
subprocess.check_output(['cksum', filename]) 0.0553209781647
md5sum_mmap(filename) 0.0286180973053
md5sum_read(filename) 0.0311000347137
subprocess.check_output(['md5sum', filename]) 0.0332629680634
$ time md5sum /tmp/test.data.300k
d3fe3d5d4c2460b5daacc30c6efbc77f  /tmp/test.data.300k

real    0m0.043s
user    0m0.032s
sys     0m0.010s
$ stat -c '%s' /tmp/test.data.300k
11890400

import hashlib
def md5sum(filename, blocksize=65536):
    hash = hashlib.md5()
    with open(filename, "rb") as f:
        for block in iter(lambda: f.read(blocksize), b""):
            hash.update(block)
    return hash.hexdigest()

import zlib
def adler32sum(filename, blocksize=65536):
    checksum = zlib.adler32("")
    with open(filename, "rb") as f:
        for block in iter(lambda: f.read(blocksize), b""):
            checksum = zlib.adler32(block, checksum)
    return checksum & 0xffffffff