yid

These IDs are distributed (needs no co-ordination or central server) and are timestamped so they are approximately sortable.

The random part however is not monotonically incrementing. There are use-cases for and against this. For example, you generally want incrementing IDs within any particular operation(s) which this package will provide. It wouldn't provide this across parrallel operations, though it would provide unique IDs.

This is just a design decision for this package. If you need monotonically incrementing IDs you might have to look elsewhere.

Synopsis

const yid = require('yid')

// Standard Version
console.log(yid())
// -> '1517049989798-7496988299172'

// Base62 Version (Shorter)
console.log(yid.base62())
// -> '0UcpUKiY-0i0Jk7UU'

// Prefixed Standard Version
console.log(yid('cc'))
// -> 'cc-1517056278382-3829387742987'

// Base62 Version (Shorter)
console.log(yid.base62('cc'))
// -> 'cc-0UcpULuS-0dw0bPNj'

A standard yid is:

• always 27 chars long
• has two parts:
  • a timestamp
  • a random string
• is of the form \d{13}-\d{13}
• starts off with Date.now()
• ends with a random set of numbers

A base62 yid is:

• always 17 chars long
• has two parts:
  • a timestamp
  • a random string
• is of the form [0-9A-Za-z]{8}-[0-9A-Za-z]{8}
• starts off with Date.now() in base62
• ends with a random set of numbers in base62

yid.fromDate(d)

Pass in a Date object, and get a yid back. This is great if you want to timestamp something in the past or the future, rather than right now.

You may pass a prefix as the 2nd parameter.

yid.base62()

Returns an ID not as \d{13}-\d{13} but as [0-9A-Za-z]{8}-[0-9A-Za-z]{8}. i.e. a smaller but still sortable version.

const yid = require('yid')

// create an ID using the date at the start of the day
const date = new Date()
date.setUTCHours(0)
date.setUTCMinutes(0)
date.setUTCSeconds(0)
date.setUTCMilliseconds(0)
console.log(yid.fromDate(date))
// -> 1635984000000-4266433825250

yid.asDate(id)

Returns the numbers from the first part of the id as a Date().

yid.asDate(id)
// -> Date: "2018-01-27T10:46:29.798Z"

yid.asEpoch(id)

Returns the numbers from the first part of the id as a Number().

yid.asEpoch(id)
// -> Number: 1517049989798

yid.asRandom(id)

Returns the random collection of digits from the second part of the id.

yid.asRandom(id)
// -> "7496988299172"

Why?

Why another ID generating library?

I already wrote zid and flake (a long time ago) and they all have uses. The use for this one is to generate FAST but UNIQUE distributed IDs with no central server to talk to and no co-ordination required.

A secondary property is that they are approximately sortable across servers.

I got the idea from Google Keep, since the notes have IDs as follows, whereby the first secion is just Date.now():

• '1517050593526.6629835825', e.g. https://keep.google.com/u/1/#NOTE/1517050593526.6629835825

Similar to Firebase Push IDs and are also sortable via ASCII. However, I also wanted to avoid the possibility of an initial '-' or '_'. Hence Base62 (not Base64).

Author

Andrew Chilton.

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License

ISC.