How to create a UUID in JavaScript

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Creating a globally unique identifier has always been a necessity in all programming languages and for some reason, JavaScript never had a way of doing it in the default spec. But that is changing now with the crypto API. We can now create a UUID in JavaScript.

What is UUID/GUID?

A universally unique identifier (UUID) is a 128-bit label used for information in computer systems. The term globally unique identifier (GUID) is also used instead of UUID.

For example: “4ab4e2a1-0efb-4e5b-8f73-e503f5b8e89f”

Create a UUID in JavaScript

Traditionally, we needed to use either Math.Random(), or the Date object and then convert it into a UUID format. But now all we need is:

crypto.randomUUID() // "819df8d4-587b-4200-90b3-d30f8ed01457"

JavaScript

It is important to note that it still might not generate a unique value though the probability of that happening is fairly low.

Saransh Kataria

Born in Delhi, India, Saransh Kataria is the brain behind Wisdom Geek. Currently, Saransh is a software developer at a reputed firm in Austin, and he likes playing with new technologies to explore different possibilities. He holds an engineering degree in Computer Science. He also shares his passion for sharing knowledge as the community lead at Facebook Developer Circle Delhi, NCR which is a developer community in Delhi, India.