Short unique id in php

Question

I want to create a unique id but uniqid() is giving something like \'492607b0ee414\'. What i would like is something similar to what tinyurl gives:

Answer 1

function rand_str($len = 12, $type = '111', $add = null) {
    $rand = ($type[0] == '1'  ? 'abcdefghijklmnpqrstuvwxyz' : '') .
            ($type[1] == '1'  ? 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNPQRSTUVWXYZ' : '') .
            ($type[2] == '1'  ? '123456789'                 : '') .
            (strlen($add) > 0 ? $add                        : '');

    if(empty($rand)) $rand = sha1( uniqid(mt_rand(), true) . uniqid( uniqid(mt_rand(), true), true) );

    return substr(str_shuffle( str_repeat($rand, 2) ), 0, $len);
}