How do I create a GUID in Python that is platform independent? I hear there is a method using ActivePython on Windows but it’s Windows only because it uses COM. Is there a method using plain Python?
Answers:
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Method 1
The uuid module provides immutable UUID objects (the UUID class) and the functions
uuid1(),uuid3(),uuid4(),uuid5()for generating version 1, 3, 4, and 5 UUIDs as specified in RFC 4122.
If all you want is a unique ID, you should probably call
uuid1()oruuid4(). Note thatuuid1()may compromise privacy since it creates a UUID containing the computer’s network address.uuid4()creates a random UUID.
Docs:
Examples (for both Python 2 and 3):
>>> import uuid
>>> # make a random UUID
>>> uuid.uuid4()
UUID('bd65600d-8669-4903-8a14-af88203add38')
>>> # Convert a UUID to a string of hex digits in standard form
>>> str(uuid.uuid4())
'f50ec0b7-f960-400d-91f0-c42a6d44e3d0'
>>> # Convert a UUID to a 32-character hexadecimal string
>>> uuid.uuid4().hex
'9fe2c4e93f654fdbb24c02b15259716c'
Method 2
If you’re using Python 2.5 or later, the uuid module is already included with the Python standard distribution.
Ex:
>>> import uuid
>>> uuid.uuid4()
UUID('5361a11b-615c-42bf-9bdb-e2c3790ada14')
Method 3
Copied from : https://docs.python.org/3/library/uuid.html (Since the links posted were not active and they keep updating)
>>> import uuid
>>> # make a UUID based on the host ID and current time
>>> uuid.uuid1()
UUID('a8098c1a-f86e-11da-bd1a-00112444be1e')
>>> # make a UUID using an MD5 hash of a namespace UUID and a name
>>> uuid.uuid3(uuid.NAMESPACE_DNS, 'python.org')
UUID('6fa459ea-ee8a-3ca4-894e-db77e160355e')
>>> # make a random UUID
>>> uuid.uuid4()
UUID('16fd2706-8baf-433b-82eb-8c7fada847da')
>>> # make a UUID using a SHA-1 hash of a namespace UUID and a name
>>> uuid.uuid5(uuid.NAMESPACE_DNS, 'python.org')
UUID('886313e1-3b8a-5372-9b90-0c9aee199e5d')
>>> # make a UUID from a string of hex digits (braces and hyphens ignored)
>>> x = uuid.UUID('{00010203-0405-0607-0809-0a0b0c0d0e0f}')
>>> # convert a UUID to a string of hex digits in standard form
>>> str(x)
'00010203-0405-0607-0809-0a0b0c0d0e0f'
>>> # get the raw 16 bytes of the UUID
>>> x.bytes
'x00x01x02x03x04x05x06x07x08tnx0bx0crx0ex0f'
>>> # make a UUID from a 16-byte string
>>> uuid.UUID(bytes=x.bytes)
UUID('00010203-0405-0607-0809-0a0b0c0d0e0f')
Method 4
I use GUIDs as random keys for database type operations.
The hexadecimal form, with the dashes and extra characters seem unnecessarily long to me. But I also like that strings representing hexadecimal numbers are very safe in that they do not contain characters that can cause problems in some situations such as ‘+’,’=’, etc..
Instead of hexadecimal, I use a url-safe base64 string. The following does not conform to any UUID/GUID spec though (other than having the required amount of randomness).
import base64
import uuid
# get a UUID - URL safe, Base64
def get_a_uuid():
r_uuid = base64.urlsafe_b64encode(uuid.uuid4().bytes)
return r_uuid.replace('=', '')
Method 5
If you need to pass UUID for a primary key for your model or unique field then below code returns the UUID object –
import uuid uuid.uuid4()
If you need to pass UUID as a parameter for URL you can do like below code –
import uuid str(uuid.uuid4())
If you want the hex value for a UUID you can do the below one –
import uuid uuid.uuid4().hex
Method 6
If you are making a website or app where you need to every time a unique id. It should be a string a number then UUID is a great package in python which is helping to create a unique id.
**pip install uuid**
import uuid
def get_uuid_id():
return str(uuid.uuid4())
print(get_uuid_id())
OUTPUT example: 89e5b891-cf2c-4396-8d1c-49be7f2ee02d
Method 7
2019 Answer (for Windows):
If you want a permanent UUID that identifies a machine uniquely on Windows, you can use this trick: (Copied from my answer at https://stackoverflow.com/a/58416992/8874388).
from typing import Optional
import re
import subprocess
import uuid
def get_windows_uuid() -> Optional[uuid.UUID]:
try:
# Ask Windows for the device's permanent UUID. Throws if command missing/fails.
txt = subprocess.check_output("wmic csproduct get uuid").decode()
# Attempt to extract the UUID from the command's result.
match = re.search(r"bUUIDb[srn]+([^srn]+)", txt)
if match is not None:
txt = match.group(1)
if txt is not None:
# Remove the surrounding whitespace (newlines, space, etc)
# and useless dashes etc, by only keeping hex (0-9 A-F) chars.
txt = re.sub(r"[^0-9A-Fa-f]+", "", txt)
# Ensure we have exactly 32 characters (16 bytes).
if len(txt) == 32:
return uuid.UUID(txt)
except:
pass # Silence subprocess exception.
return None
print(get_windows_uuid())
Uses Windows API to get the computer’s permanent UUID, then processes the string to ensure it’s a valid UUID, and lastly returns a Python object (https://docs.python.org/3/library/uuid.html) which gives you convenient ways to use the data (such as 128-bit integer, hex string, etc).
Good luck!
PS: The subprocess call could probably be replaced with ctypes directly calling Windows kernel/DLLs. But for my purposes this function is all I need. It does strong validation and produces correct results.
Method 8
This function is fully configurable and generates unique uid based on the format specified
eg:- [8, 4, 4, 4, 12] , this is the format mentioned and it will generate the following uuid
LxoYNyXe-7hbQ-caJt-DSdU-PDAht56cMEWi
import random as r
def generate_uuid():
random_string = ''
random_str_seq = "0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
uuid_format = [8, 4, 4, 4, 12]
for n in uuid_format:
for i in range(0,n):
random_string += str(random_str_seq[r.randint(0, len(random_str_seq) - 1)])
if n != 12:
random_string += '-'
return random_string
Method 9
Check this post, helped me a lot. In short, the best option for me was:
import random
import string
# defining function for random
# string id with parameter
def ran_gen(size, chars=string.ascii_uppercase + string.digits):
return ''.join(random.choice(chars) for x in range(size))
# function call for random string
# generation with size 8 and string
print (ran_gen(8, "AEIOSUMA23"))
Because I needed just 4-6 random characters instead of bulky GUID.
All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0