stduuid

A C++ cross-platform implementation for universally unique identifiers, simply know as either UUID or GUID (mostly on Windows). A UUID is a 128-bit number used to uniquely identify information in computer systems, such as database table keys, COM interfaces, classes and type libraries, and many others.

For information about UUID/GUIDs see:

• Universally unique identifier
• A Universally Unique IDentifier (UUID) URN Namespace

Library overview

The library defines a namespace uuids with the following types and functions:

• uuid is a class representing a UUID; this can be default constructed (a nil UUID), constructed from an array of bytes, or from a string. sentation (in lowercase)
• uuid_variant is a strongly type enum representing the type of a UUID
• uuid_version is a strongly type enum representing the version of a UUID
• make_uuid is a parameterless function that creates a new UUID using the typical platform-specific method to create one (CoCreateGuid on Windows, uuid_generate on Linux, CFUUIDCreate on Mac).
• operator== and operator!= for UUIDs comparison for equality/inequality
• operator< for comparing whether one UUIDs is less than another. Although this operation does not make much logical sense, it is necessary in order to store UUIDs in a std::set.
• operator<< to write a UUID to an output string using the standard repre
• std::swap<> specialization for uuid
• std::hash<> specialization for uuid, necessary for storing UUIDs in unordered associative containers, such as std::unordered_set

This project is currently under development and should be ignored until further notice.

Using the library

The following is a list of examples for using the library:

• Creating a nil UUID

uuid empty;
assert(empty.is_nil());
assert(empty.size() == 16);

• Creating a new UUID

uuid const guid = uuids::make_uuid();
assert(!guid.is_nil());
assert(guid.size() == 16);
assert(guid.version() == uuids::uuid_version::random_number_based);
assert(guid.variant() == uuids::uuid_variant::rfc);

• Create a UUID from a string

using namespace std::string_literals;

auto str = "47183823-2574-4bfd-b411-99ed177d3e43"s;
uuid guid(str);
assert(guid.string() == str);

or

auto str = L"47183823-2574-4bfd-b411-99ed177d3e43"s;
uuid guid(str);
assert(guid.wstring() == str);      

• Comparing UUIDS

uuid empty;
uuid guid = uuids::make_uuid();

assert(empty == empty);
assert(guid == guid);
assert(empty != guid);

• Swapping UUIDS

uuid empty;
uuid guid = uuids::make_uuid();

assert(empty.is_nil());
assert(!guid.is_nil());

std::swap(empty, guid);

assert(!empty.is_nil());
assert(guid.is_nil());

empty.swap(guid);

assert(empty.is_nil());
assert(!guid.is_nil());

• Converting to string

uuid empty;
assert(empty.string() == "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000");
assert(empty.wstring() == L"00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000");

• Using with an orderered associative container

std::set<uuids::uuid> ids{
   uuid{},
   uuids::make_uuid(),
   uuids::make_uuid(),
   uuids::make_uuid(),
   uuids::make_uuid()
};

assert(ids.size() == 5);
assert(ids.find(uuid{}) != ids.end());

• Using in an unordered associative container

std::unordered_set<uuids::uuid> ids{
   uuid{},
   uuids::make_uuid(),
   uuids::make_uuid(),
   uuids::make_uuid(),
   uuids::make_uuid()
};

assert(ids.size() == 5);
assert(ids.find(uuid{}) != ids.end());

• Hashing UUIDs

auto h1 = std::hash<std::string>{};
auto h2 = std::hash<uuid>{};
assert(h1(str) == h2(guid));

Limitations

The library can only create new uuids using the underlaying operating system resources.

An alternative to this library could be the boost::uuid library. This has a similar model, but supports creating all variant of uuids, including md5 and sha1 name based, time based, and random number based values.

Support

The library is supported on all major operating systems: Windows, Linux and Mac OS.

Testing

A testing project is available in the sources. To build and execute the tests do the following:

• Clone or download this repository
• Create a build directory in the root directory of the sources
• Run the command cmake .. from the build directory; if you do not have CMake you must install it first.
• Build the project created in the previous step
• Run the executable.