uuid — UUID objects

The uuid module provides immutable UUID objects (the UUID class) and the functions uuid1(), uuid3(), uuid4(), uuid5() for generating universally unique identifiers.

For general use-cases where you just need a random unique ID, UUIDv4 is exactly what you need.

import uuid

Generating Random UUIDs (v4)

UUID version 4 is fully randomized. It relies on the system's cryptographically secure random number generator.

import uuid

# Generate a UUIDv4
my_id = uuid.uuid4()

print(my_id)
# 43763f08-0158-45eb-9730-84a275f6aa3d

# Access internal representations
print(my_id.hex)     # 43763f08015845eb973084a275f6aa3d
print(my_id.int)     # 89793540263300898495574706595460598333

Creating UUIDs from specific data

• uuid1(): Based on the host's MAC address and current time. (Can pose a privacy risk and is predictable).
• uuid3() / uuid5(): Based on the MD5/SHA-1 hash of a namespace identifier and a name. If you generate a UUID5 from the identical namespace and name twice, you get the exact same UUID.

import uuid

# Generate UUID based on a URL (UUID5 is recommended over UUID3)
name = 'python.org'
namespace = uuid.NAMESPACE_DNS
my_id = uuid.uuid5(namespace, name)

print(my_id) 
# 886313e1-3b8a-5372-9b90-0c9aee199e5d

API Reference

Core Functions

The UUID Class