How to generate a GUID in Oracle?

Question

Is it possible to auto-generate a GUID into an Insert statement?

Also, what type of field should I use to store this GUID?

Answer 1

If you need non-sequential guids you can send the sys_guid() results through a hashing function (see https://stackoverflow.com/a/22534843/1462295 ). The idea is to keep whatever uniqueness is used from the original creation, and get something with more shuffled bits.

For instance:

LOWER(SUBSTR(STANDARD_HASH(SYS_GUID(), 'SHA1'), 0, 32))  

Example showing default sequential guid vs sending it through a hash:

SELECT LOWER(SYS_GUID()) AS OGUID FROM DUAL
UNION ALL
SELECT LOWER(SYS_GUID()) AS OGUID FROM DUAL
UNION ALL
SELECT LOWER(SYS_GUID()) AS OGUID FROM DUAL
UNION ALL
SELECT LOWER(SYS_GUID()) AS OGUID FROM DUAL
UNION ALL
SELECT LOWER(SUBSTR(STANDARD_HASH(SYS_GUID(), 'SHA1'), 0, 32)) AS OGUID FROM DUAL
UNION ALL
SELECT LOWER(SUBSTR(STANDARD_HASH(SYS_GUID(), 'SHA1'), 0, 32)) AS OGUID FROM DUAL
UNION ALL
SELECT LOWER(SUBSTR(STANDARD_HASH(SYS_GUID(), 'SHA1'), 0, 32)) AS OGUID FROM DUAL
UNION ALL
SELECT LOWER(SUBSTR(STANDARD_HASH(SYS_GUID(), 'SHA1'), 0, 32)) AS OGUID FROM DUAL  

output

80c32a4fbe405707e0531e18980a1bbb
80c32a4fbe415707e0531e18980a1bbb
80c32a4fbe425707e0531e18980a1bbb
80c32a4fbe435707e0531e18980a1bbb
c0f2ff2d3ef7b422c302bd87a4588490
d1886a8f3b4c547c28b0805d70b384f3
a0c565f3008622dde3148cfce9353ba7
1c375f3311faab15dc6a7503ce08182c