Storing UUID as base64 String

Question

I have been experimenting with using UUIDs as database keys. I want to take up the least amount of bytes as possible, while still keeping the UUID representation human read

Answer 1

Here's my code, it uses org.apache.commons.codec.binary.Base64 to produce url-safe unique strings that are 22 characters in length (and that have the same uniqueness as UUID).

private static Base64 BASE64 = new Base64(true);
public static String generateKey(){
    UUID uuid = UUID.randomUUID();
    byte[] uuidArray = KeyGenerator.toByteArray(uuid);
    byte[] encodedArray = BASE64.encode(uuidArray);
    String returnValue = new String(encodedArray);
    returnValue = StringUtils.removeEnd(returnValue, "\r\n");
    return returnValue;
}
public static UUID convertKey(String key){
    UUID returnValue = null;
    if(StringUtils.isNotBlank(key)){
        // Convert base64 string to a byte array
        byte[] decodedArray = BASE64.decode(key);
        returnValue = KeyGenerator.fromByteArray(decodedArray);
    }
    return returnValue;
}
private static byte[] toByteArray(UUID uuid) {
    byte[] byteArray = new byte[(Long.SIZE / Byte.SIZE) * 2];
    ByteBuffer buffer = ByteBuffer.wrap(byteArray);
    LongBuffer longBuffer = buffer.asLongBuffer();
    longBuffer.put(new long[] { uuid.getMostSignificantBits(), uuid.getLeastSignificantBits() });
    return byteArray;
}
private static UUID fromByteArray(byte[] bytes) {
    ByteBuffer buffer = ByteBuffer.wrap(bytes);
    LongBuffer longBuffer = buffer.asLongBuffer();
    return new UUID(longBuffer.get(0), longBuffer.get(1));
}