uuid05 0.0.1

UUID05 - compact human-readable almost unique identifiers for temporary objects in small non-synchronizing distributed systems.

Well, it's not really unique (that's why 0.5) and collisions are possible but probability is low and it's probably acceptable.

The library provides you with just 2 functions: uuid05() -> int and int2b64(int) -> str and have zero dependencies.

Examples below explain how it works:

Installing

pip install uuid05

Using

from uuid05 import uuid05, int2b64

# May be parametrized by workers: int, ttl: int, precision: int
# defaults are: workers=10, ttl=2 days, precision=1
uid: int = uuid05()
suffix: str = int2b64(uid)
object_name: str = f'autotest_object_{suffix}'

It can be also used as an utility from command-line:

$ uuid05
61503153
$ uuid05 -w 2
1503125
$ uuid05 -t 3600 -w 2
27091
$ uuid05 -b -t 3600 -w 2
aZ8
$ uuid05 -b -w 2
FvN2
$ uuid05 -b
AxHktA
$ uuid --help

When UUID05 is suitable

In E2E/UI-testing. It's slow, and sometimes you need to check a data created by tests after run.

Or, more generally, in staging environments where you aren't sure that your testing system will delete data after runs, but tested system is aware of such a data and deletes it after some time. There's also be multiple testing systems instances running simultaneously, and you don't want them to affect each other.

You also may want identifiers to be more or less rememberable for at least 10-15 seconds while you switching tabs.

Oh, and you don't want to synchronize workers via network. Otherwise Redis, Memcached or another database with a single INCRementing counter would do the trick.

When UUID05 isn't suitable

• If your system isn't distributed. Local counter in memory or file will work better.
• If your objects are persistent - you'd better use py-nanoid.
• If you need to generate multiple UIDs for multiple object really quick:
  • generate one and reuse it, using a semantic or loop variable as a suffix;
  • pass precision argument to uuid05(). It scales automatically with worker count, but if there are less than 16 workers, default is 1 which means 1 uuid per 0.1 second, usually it's enough.
    • precision=3 argument will use milliseconds.
    • precision=6 for microseconds.
  • if precision=6 is not enough stop trying to make your identifier compact.
• If you believe that semi-persistent data is a testing antipattern, and it should be cleared by testing system before or after each run.

Development

• Tests are doctests and may be run by pytest.
• Documentation - look at code, it's just two files.