Re: [PATCH] Time-based RFC 4122 UUID generator

From: H. Peter Anvin
Date: Tue Nov 20 2007 - 01:46:21 EST


David Schwartz wrote:

Any UUID generator that can produce duplicate UUIDs with probability
significantly less than purely random UUIDs is so badly broken that it
should not ever be used. Anyone who finds such a UUID generator should
immediately either fix it or throw it on the junk heap. Anyone who knowingly
uses such a UUID generator should be publically shamed.

Rather than (or at the very least, in addition to) adding a new UUID
generator, let's fix the one(s) we have.


I presume you mean "significantly higher."

Realistically speaking, a random UUID is probably the best you're going to ever get. I highly suspect that any time- and MAC-address-based solution is going to suffer from mis-set clocks and misprogrammed MAC addresses more often than you will have collisions in a 122-bit random number.

-hpa
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