Questions about GUID's: Are they always fixed in length, and is the middle number always 4?

Question

I just generated a few million GUID\'s turned them into a String and got the length... it was always the same. Can I rely on this fixed length of the GUID when converting to St

Answer 1

No - a GUID does not have to be a type 4 UUID in fact many GUIDS under windows are UUID's of TYPE 1.

Type 1 takes the primary MAC, a clock and a sequence. This in fact "Leaks" data since all the UUID1s that are created on the same system will have the same MAC. That is why most GUID functions will take this data and hash it and turn it into a hash-based UUID