uniqid
(PHP 4, PHP 5)
uniqid — Generate a unique ID
Description
Gets a prefixed unique identifier based on the current time in microseconds.
Parameters
- prefix
-
Can be useful, for instance, if you generate identifiers simultaneously on several hosts that might happen to generate the identifier at the same microsecond.
With an empty prefix, the returned string will be 13 characters long. If more_entropy is TRUE, it will be 23 characters.
- more_entropy
-
If set to TRUE, uniqid() will add additional entropy (using the combined linear congruential generator) at the end of the return value, which should make the results more unique.
Return Values
Returns the unique identifier, as a string.
Examples
Example #1 uniqid() Example
<?php
/* A uniqid, like: 4b3403665fea6 */
printf("uniqid(): %s\r\n", uniqid());
/* We can also prefix the uniqid, this the same as
* doing:
*
* $uniqid = $prefix . uniqid();
* $uniqid = uniqid($prefix);
*/
printf("uniqid('php_'): %s\r\n", uniqid('php_'));
/* We can also activate the more_entropy parameter, which is
* required on some systems, like Cygwin. This makes uniqid()
* produce a value like: 4b340550242239.64159797
*/
printf("uniqid('', true): %s\r\n", uniqid('', true));
?>
Changelog
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
| 5.0.0 | The prefix parameter was made optional. |
| 4.3.1 | The limit of 114 characters long for prefix was raised. |
Notes
Note:
Under Cygwin, the more_entropy must be set to TRUE for this function to work.