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Universally Unique Lexicographically Sortable Identifier

A Go port of alizain/ulid with binary format implemented.

Background

A GUID/UUID can be suboptimal for many use-cases because:

It isn't the most character efficient way of encoding 128 bits
UUID v1/v2 is impractical in many environments, as it requires access to a unique, stable MAC address
UUID v3/v5 requires a unique seed and produces randomly distributed IDs, which can cause fragmentation in many data structures
UUID v4 provides no other information than randomness which can cause fragmentation in many data structures

A ULID however:

Is compatible with UUID/GUID's
1.21e+24 unique ULIDs per millisecond (1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 to be exact)
Lexicographically sortable
Canonically encoded as a 26 character string, as opposed to the 36 character UUID
Uses Crockford's base32 for better efficiency and readability (5 bits per character)
Case insensitive
No special characters (URL safe)
Monotonic sort order (correctly detects and handles the same millisecond)

Install

go get github.com/oklog/ulid

Usage

An ULID is constructed with a time.Time and an io.Reader entropy source. This design allows for greater flexibility in choosing your trade-offs.

Please note that rand.Rand from the math package is not safe for concurrent use. Instantiate one per long living go-routine or use a sync.Pool if you want to avoid the potential contention of a locked rand.Source as its been frequently observed in the package level functions.

func ExampleULID() {
	t := time.Unix(1000000, 0)
	entropy := ulid.Monotonic(rand.New(rand.NewSource(t.UnixNano())), 0)
	fmt.Println(ulid.MustNew(ulid.Timestamp(t), entropy))
	// Output: 0000XSNJG0MQJHBF4QX1EFD6Y3
}

Specification

Below is the current specification of ULID as implemented in this repository.

Components

Timestamp

48 bits
UNIX-time in milliseconds
Won't run out of space till the year 10895 AD

Entropy

80 bits
User defined entropy source.
Monotonicity within the same millisecond with ulid.Monotonic

Encoding

Crockford's Base32 is used as shown. This alphabet excludes the letters I, L, O, and U to avoid confusion and abuse.

0123456789ABCDEFGHJKMNPQRSTVWXYZ

Binary Layout and Byte Order

The components are encoded as 16 octets. Each component is encoded with the Most Significant Byte first (network byte order).

0                   1                   2                   3
 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|                      32_bit_uint_time_high                    |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|     16_bit_uint_time_low      |       16_bit_uint_random      |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|                       32_bit_uint_random                      |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|                       32_bit_uint_random                      |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

String Representation

 01AN4Z07BY      79KA1307SR9X4MV3
|----------|    |----------------|
 Timestamp           Entropy
  10 chars           16 chars
   48bits             80bits
   base32             base32

Test

go test ./...

Benchmarks

On a Intel Core i7 Ivy Bridge 2.7 GHz, MacOS 10.12.1 and Go 1.8.0beta1

BenchmarkNew/WithCryptoEntropy-8      2000000        771 ns/op      20.73 MB/s   16 B/op   1 allocs/op
BenchmarkNew/WithEntropy-8            20000000      65.8 ns/op     243.01 MB/s   16 B/op   1 allocs/op
BenchmarkNew/WithoutEntropy-8         50000000      30.0 ns/op     534.06 MB/s   16 B/op   1 allocs/op
BenchmarkMustNew/WithCryptoEntropy-8  2000000        781 ns/op      20.48 MB/s   16 B/op   1 allocs/op
BenchmarkMustNew/WithEntropy-8        20000000      70.0 ns/op     228.51 MB/s   16 B/op   1 allocs/op
BenchmarkMustNew/WithoutEntropy-8     50000000      34.6 ns/op     462.98 MB/s   16 B/op   1 allocs/op
BenchmarkParse-8                      50000000      30.0 ns/op     866.16 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op
BenchmarkMustParse-8                  50000000      35.2 ns/op     738.94 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op
BenchmarkString-8                     20000000      64.9 ns/op     246.40 MB/s   32 B/op   1 allocs/op
BenchmarkMarshal/Text-8               20000000      55.8 ns/op     286.84 MB/s   32 B/op   1 allocs/op
BenchmarkMarshal/TextTo-8             100000000     22.4 ns/op     714.91 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op
BenchmarkMarshal/Binary-8             300000000     4.02 ns/op    3981.77 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op
BenchmarkMarshal/BinaryTo-8           2000000000    1.18 ns/op   13551.75 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op
BenchmarkUnmarshal/Text-8             100000000     20.5 ns/op    1265.27 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op
BenchmarkUnmarshal/Binary-8           300000000     4.94 ns/op    3240.01 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op
BenchmarkNow-8                        100000000     15.1 ns/op     528.09 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op
BenchmarkTimestamp-8                  2000000000    0.29 ns/op   27271.59 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op
BenchmarkTime-8                       2000000000    0.58 ns/op   13717.80 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op
BenchmarkSetTime-8                    2000000000    0.89 ns/op    9023.95 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op
BenchmarkEntropy-8                    200000000     7.62 ns/op    1311.66 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op
BenchmarkSetEntropy-8                 2000000000    0.88 ns/op   11376.54 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op
BenchmarkCompare-8                    200000000     7.34 ns/op    4359.23 MB/s    0 B/op   0 allocs/op

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