diff --git a/lib/puppet/parser/functions/md5.rb b/lib/puppet/parser/functions/md5.rb
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..f7a4f7222
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/puppet/parser/functions/md5.rb
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+Puppet::Parser::Functions::newfunction(:md5, :type => :rvalue, :doc => "Returns a MD5 hash value from a provided string.") do |args|
+      require 'md5'
+
+      Digest::MD5.hexdigest(args[0])
+end