Question: I don't want to calculate a file's checksum, just to know if a given string is a valid checksum

Answer: 
Any 160-bit sequence is a possible SHA1 hash. Any 128-bit sequence is a possible MD5 hash.

If you're looking at the hex string representations of them, then a sha1 will look like 40 hexadecimal digits, and an md5 will look like 32 hexadecimal digits.
**RegExp SHA-1** 

```
public static final String SHA_1 = "^([0-9A-Fa-f]{2}[:]){19}([0-9A-Fa-f]{2})$";

public boolean isValidSHA1(String s) {
    return s.matches(SHA_1);
}

boolean isValidSHA1 = isValidSHA1("12:45:54:3A:99:24:52:EA...");

```