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  3. How to Generage a UUID in Node.js

How to Generage a UUID in Node.js

UUIDs are typically used as unique identifiers. You can also use them in JavaScript and Node.js. The Node.js team recently added native support to generate a UUID to Node.js’ crypto module. For earlier Node.js versions you may use a community package to generate a UUID. That’s what this tutorial shows you: two ways to generate a UUID in Node.js!

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Idea 1: Generage a UUID in Node.js

Since Node.js 14.17.0 (and later versions) you can generate a UUID v4 natively in Node.js. There’s a new crypto.randomUUID() method generating a random RFC 4122 compliant version 4 UUID. Here’s how you can generate a UUID v4 in Node.js:

import { randomUUID } from 'crypto'

const uuid = randomUUID()  
// 'super111-nice-uuid-v4dontyouthink1'

That’s all. The crypto.randomUUID() method returns the generated UUID v4 as a string. Use it in your application.

Idea 2: Use the uuid Package

Because until recently there was no native way to generate UUIDs in Node.js. You had to use a community package to create a UUID. The uuid package provides the functionality to generate UUIDs. This package comes with support for different UUID version. It supports generating UUIDs in version 1, version 3, version 4, and version 5.

At first, install the uuid package as a project dependency:

npm install uuid

Then, import the UUID package and call the method related to the UUID version you want to use. Here’s an example generating a UUID v4:

import Uuid from 'uuid'

const uuidV4 = Uuid.v4()  
// 'super111-nice-uuid-v4dontyouthink1'

That’s it!

Idea 2.5: Use the @supercharge/strings Package

I’m the maintainer of the @supercharge/strings package providing convenient string utilities. The @supercharge/strings package comes with a handy Str.uuid() method generating a UUID v4 for you.

The @supercharge/strings package uses the uuid package to generate a UUID v4. You can benefit from a package generating a UUID if you’re using @supercharge/strings already 😃

const Str = require('@supercharge/strings')

const uuid = Str.uuid()  
// 'super111-nice-uuid-v4dontyouthink1'

Enjoy!

Mentioned Resources

Marcus Pöhls

Marcus is a fullstack JS developer. He’s passionate about the hapi framework for Node.js and loves to build web apps and APIs. Creator of Futureflix and the “learn hapi” learning path.

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