How to generate “random” but also “unique” numbers?

Question

How are random numbers generated.? How do languages such as java etc generate random numbers, especially how it is done for GUIDs.? i found that algorithms like Pseudorandomnumb

Answer 1

First: If the number is guaranteed to never repeat, it's not very random.

Second: There are lots of PRNG algorithms.

UPDATE:

Third: There's an IETF RFC for UUIDs (what MS calls GUIDs), but you should recognize that (U|G)UIDs are not cryptographically secure, if that is a concern for you.

UPDATE 2:

If you want to actually use something like this in production code (not just for your own edification) please use a pre-existing library. This is the sort of code that is almost guaranteed to have subtle bugs in it if you've never done it before (or even if you have).

UPDATE 3:

Here's the docs for .NET's GUID