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Globally Unique ID Generator

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Package xid is a globally unique id generator library, ready to safely be used directly in your server code.

Xid uses the Mongo Object ID algorithm to generate globally unique ids with a different serialization (base32hex) to make it shorter when transported as a string: https://docs.mongodb.org/manual/reference/object-id/

The binary representation of the id is compatible with Mongo 12 bytes Object IDs. The string representation is using base32hex (w/o padding) for better space efficiency when stored in that form (20 bytes). The hex variant of base32 is used to retain the sortable property of the id.

Xid doesn't use base64 because case sensitivity and the 2 non alphanum chars may be an issue when transported as a string between various systems. Base36 wasn't retained either because 1/ it's not standard 2/ the resulting size is not predictable (not bit aligned) and 3/ it would not remain sortable. To validate a base32 xid, expect a 20 chars long, all lowercase sequence of a to v letters and 0 to 9 numbers ([0-9a-v]{20}).

UUIDs are 16 bytes (128 bits) and 36 chars as string representation. Twitter Snowflake ids are 8 bytes (64 bits) but require machine/data-center configuration and/or central generator servers. xid stands in between with 12 bytes (96 bits) and a more compact URL-safe string representation (20 chars). No configuration or central generator server is required so it can be used directly in server's code.

NameBinary SizeString SizeFeatures
UUID16 bytes36 charsconfiguration free, not sortable
shortuuid16 bytes22 charsconfiguration free, not sortable
Snowflake8 bytesup to 20 charsneeds machine/DC configuration, needs central server, sortable
MongoID12 bytes24 charsconfiguration free, sortable
xid12 bytes20 charsconfiguration free, sortable

Features:

Best used with zerolog's RequestIDHandler.

Notes:

References:

Install

go get github.com/rs/xid

Usage

guid := xid.New()

println(guid.String())
// Output: 9m4e2mr0ui3e8a215n4g

Get xid embedded info:

guid.Machine()
guid.Pid()
guid.Time()
guid.Counter()

Benchmark

Benchmark against Go Maxim Bublis's UUID.

BenchmarkXID        	20000000	        91.1 ns/op	      32 B/op	       1 allocs/op
BenchmarkXID-2      	20000000	        55.9 ns/op	      32 B/op	       1 allocs/op
BenchmarkXID-4      	50000000	        32.3 ns/op	      32 B/op	       1 allocs/op
BenchmarkUUIDv1     	10000000	       204 ns/op	      48 B/op	       1 allocs/op
BenchmarkUUIDv1-2   	10000000	       160 ns/op	      48 B/op	       1 allocs/op
BenchmarkUUIDv1-4   	10000000	       195 ns/op	      48 B/op	       1 allocs/op
BenchmarkUUIDv4     	 1000000	      1503 ns/op	      64 B/op	       2 allocs/op
BenchmarkUUIDv4-2   	 1000000	      1427 ns/op	      64 B/op	       2 allocs/op
BenchmarkUUIDv4-4   	 1000000	      1452 ns/op	      64 B/op	       2 allocs/op

Note: UUIDv1 requires a global lock, hence the performance degradation as we add more CPUs.

Licenses

All source code is licensed under the MIT License.