Generating 8-character only UUIDs

Question

UUID libraries generate 32-character UUIDs.

I want to generate 8-character only UUIDs, is it possible?

Answer 1

Actually I want timestamp based shorter unique identifier, hence tried the below program.

It is guessable with nanosecond + ( endians.length * endians.length ) combinations.

public class TimStampShorterUUID {

    private static final Character [] endians = 
           {'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 
            'k', 'l', 'm', 'n', 'o', 'p', 'q', 'r', 's', 't', 
            'u', 'v', 'w', 'x', 'y', 'z', 
            'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G', 'H', 'I', 'J', 
            'K', 'L', 'M', 'N', 'O', 'P', 'Q', 'R', 'S', 'T', 
            'U', 'V', 'W', 'X', 'Y', 'Z',
            '0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9'
            };

   private static ThreadLocal threadLocal =  new ThreadLocal();

   private static AtomicLong iterator = new AtomicLong(-1);


    public static String generateShorterTxnId() {
        // Keep this as secure random when we want more secure, in distributed systems
        int firstLetter = ThreadLocalRandom.current().nextInt(0, (endians.length));

        //Sometimes your randomness and timestamp will be same value,
        //when multiple threads are trying at the same nano second
        //time hence to differentiate it, utilize the threads requesting
        //for this value, the possible unique thread numbers == endians.length
        Character secondLetter = threadLocal.get();
        if (secondLetter == null) {
            synchronized (threadLocal) {
                if (secondLetter == null) {
                    threadLocal.set(endians[(int) (iterator.incrementAndGet() % endians.length)]);
                }
            }
            secondLetter = threadLocal.get();
        }
        return "" + endians[firstLetter] + secondLetter + System.nanoTime();
    }


    public static void main(String[] args) {

        Map uniqueKeysTestMap = new ConcurrentHashMap<>();

        Thread t1 = new Thread() {  
            @Override
            public void run() {
                while(true) {
                    String time = generateShorterTxnId();
                    String result = uniqueKeysTestMap.put(time, "");
                    if(result != null) {
                        System.out.println("failed! - " + time);
                    }
                }
            }       
        };

        Thread t2 = new Thread() {  
            @Override
            public void run() {
                while(true) {
                    String time = generateShorterTxnId();
                    String result = uniqueKeysTestMap.put(time, "");
                    if(result != null) {
                        System.out.println("failed! - " + time);
                    }
                }
            }       
        };

        Thread t3 = new Thread() {  
            @Override
            public void run() {
                while(true) {
                    String time = generateShorterTxnId();
                    String result = uniqueKeysTestMap.put(time, "");
                    if(result != null) {
                        System.out.println("failed! - " + time);
                    }
                }
            }       
        };

        Thread t4 = new Thread() {  
            @Override
            public void run() {
                while(true) {
                    String time = generateShorterTxnId();
                    String result = uniqueKeysTestMap.put(time, "");
                    if(result != null) {
                        System.out.println("failed! - " + time);
                    }
                }
            }       
        };

        Thread t5 = new Thread() {  
            @Override
            public void run() {
                while(true) {
                    String time = generateShorterTxnId();
                    String result = uniqueKeysTestMap.put(time, "");
                    if(result != null) {
                        System.out.println("failed! - " + time);
                    }
                }
            }
        };

        Thread t6 = new Thread() {  
            @Override
            public void run() {
                while(true) {
                    String time = generateShorterTxnId();
                    String result = uniqueKeysTestMap.put(time, "");
                    if(result != null) {
                        System.out.println("failed! - " + time);
                    }
                }
            }   
        };

        Thread t7 = new Thread() {  
            @Override
            public void run() {
                while(true) {
                    String time = generateShorterTxnId();
                    String result = uniqueKeysTestMap.put(time, "");
                    if(result != null) {
                        System.out.println("failed! - " + time);
                    }
                }
            }
        };

        t1.start();
        t2.start();
        t3.start();
        t4.start();
        t5.start();
        t6.start();
        t7.start();
    }
}

UPDATE: This code will work on single JVM, but we should think on distributed JVM, hence i am thinking two solutions one with DB and another one without DB.

with DB

Company name (shortname 3 chars) ---- Random_Number ---- Key specific redis COUNTER
(3 char) ------------------------------------------------ (2 char) ---------------- (11 char)

without DB

IPADDRESS ---- THREAD_NUMBER ---- INCR_NUMBER ---- epoch milliseconds
(5 chars) ----------------- (2char) ----------------------- (2 char) ----------------- (6 char)

will update you once coding is done.