diff --git a/src/axolotl/utils/data.py b/src/axolotl/utils/data.py
index 20d0fcfb8..f322b800b 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/utils/data.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/utils/data.py
@@ -2,7 +2,6 @@
 import functools
 import hashlib
 import logging
-from hashlib import md5
 from pathlib import Path
 from typing import Tuple, Union
 
@@ -52,6 +51,13 @@ LOG = logging.getLogger("axolotl")
 DEFAULT_DATASET_PREPARED_PATH = "last_run_prepared"
 
 
+def md5(to_hash: str, encoding: str = "utf-8") -> str:
+    try:
+        return hashlib.md5(to_hash.encode(encoding), usedforsecurity=False).hexdigest()
+    except TypeError:
+        return hashlib.md5(to_hash.encode(encoding)).hexdigest()  # nosec
+
+
 def prepare_dataset(cfg, tokenizer):
     if not cfg.pretraining_dataset:
         with zero_first(is_main_process()):
@@ -88,7 +94,7 @@ def load_tokenized_prepared_datasets(
 ) -> DatasetDict:
     tokenizer_name = tokenizer.__class__.__name__
     ds_hash = str(
-        md5(  # nosec
+        md5(
             (
                 str(cfg.sequence_len)
                 + "@"
@@ -97,8 +103,8 @@ def load_tokenized_prepared_datasets(
                 )
                 + "|"
                 + tokenizer_name
-            ).encode("utf-8")
-        ).hexdigest()
+            )
+        )
     )
     prepared_ds_path = (
         Path(cfg.dataset_prepared_path) / ds_hash
@@ -374,7 +380,7 @@ def load_prepare_datasets(
         # see if we can go ahead and load the stacked dataset
         seed = f"@{str(cfg.seed)}" if cfg.seed else ""
         ds_hash = str(
-            md5(  # nosec
+            md5(
                 (
                     str(cfg.sequence_len)
                     + "@"
@@ -385,8 +391,8 @@ def load_prepare_datasets(
                     )
                     + "|"
                     + tokenizer_name
-                ).encode("utf-8")
-            ).hexdigest()
+                )
+            )
         )
         prepared_ds_path = (
             Path(cfg.dataset_prepared_path) / ds_hash
@@ -500,12 +506,8 @@ def load_prepare_datasets(
             + "|"
             + str(cfg.seed or 42)
         )
-        train_fingerprint = hashlib.md5(
-            to_hash_train.encode(), usedforsecurity=False
-        ).hexdigest()
-        test_fingerprint = hashlib.md5(
-            to_hash_test.encode(), usedforsecurity=False
-        ).hexdigest()
+        train_fingerprint = md5(to_hash_train)
+        test_fingerprint = md5(to_hash_test)
 
         with zero_first(is_main_process()):
             dataset = dataset.train_test_split(
diff --git a/tests/test_data.py b/tests/test_data.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..9d7f5a041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/test_data.py
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+"""
+test module for the axolotl.utis.data module
+"""
+import unittest
+
+from transformers import LlamaTokenizer
+
+from axolotl.utils.data import encode_pretraining, md5
+
+
+class TestEncodePretraining(unittest.TestCase):
+    """
+    test class for encode pretraining and md5 helper
+    """
+
+    def setUp(self):
+        self.tokenizer = LlamaTokenizer.from_pretrained("huggyllama/llama-7b")
+        self.tokenizer.add_special_tokens(
+            {
+                "eos_token": "</s>",
+                "bos_token": "<s>",
+                "unk_token": "<unk>",
+                "pad_token": "<pad>",
+            }
+        )
+        self.max_tokens = 15  # set a small number for easy inspection
+
+    def test_encode_pretraining(self):
+        examples = {
+            "text": [
+                "Hello, world!",
+                "Nice to meet you.",
+                "lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.",
+                "Nice to meet you again!.",
+                "hello, hello",
+            ]
+        }
+        result = encode_pretraining(self.tokenizer, self.max_tokens, examples)
+
+        self.assertEqual(len(result["input_ids"]), 3)
+
+        # Assert the length of input_ids and attention_mask is correct
+        self.assertEqual(len(result["input_ids"][0]), self.max_tokens)
+        self.assertEqual(len(result["attention_mask"][0]), self.max_tokens)
+
+        # Assert EOS and PAD tokens are correctly added
+        # hello world! is 4 tokens
+        self.assertEqual(result["input_ids"][0][0], self.tokenizer.bos_token_id)
+        self.assertEqual(result["input_ids"][0][5], self.tokenizer.eos_token_id)
+        self.assertEqual(result["input_ids"][0][6], self.tokenizer.pad_token_id)
+        # second part, 5 tokens
+        self.assertEqual(result["input_ids"][0][7], self.tokenizer.bos_token_id)
+        self.assertEqual(result["input_ids"][0][13], self.tokenizer.eos_token_id)
+        self.assertEqual(result["input_ids"][0][14], self.tokenizer.pad_token_id)
+
+    def test_md5(self):
+        self.assertEqual(md5("hello world"), "5eb63bbbe01eeed093cb22bb8f5acdc3")
+        self.assertEqual(
+            md5("hello world", "utf-8"), "5eb63bbbe01eeed093cb22bb8f5acdc3"
+        )
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    unittest.main()