JarCastingNOTE: This creates GUID-like strings and not GUIDs. @broofa's node-uuid module is much better than this implementation.
Guid lets you generate and validate unique identifiers.
In its simplest form, Guid lets you generate raw GUID formatted strings:
Guid.raw();
// -> '6fdf6ffc-ed77-94fa-407e-a7b86ed9e59d'
Let's generate a new Guid instance.
var guid = Guid.create();
We've now got an object which we can work with programmatically. Lets check the validity of our Guid using the built-in validator:
Guid.isGuid(guid);
// -> true
Guid.value;
// -> '6fdf6ffc-ed77-94fa-407e-a7b86ed9e59d'
A handy bit of functionality is that its toString method returns the string value, so you can do handy things like this:
var itemUrl = "http://whatever.com/items/" + guid;
// -> 'http://whatever.com/items/6fdf6ffc-ed77-94fa-407e-a7b86ed9e59d'
If you need a placeholder Guid, or a value to represent a non-GUID, use the static EMPTY property:
Guid.EMPTY;
// -> '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000'
Once you have a Guid object, you can't change its value (thanks ES5!):
guid.value = "go suck it, guid!"
guid.value;
// -> '6fdf6ffc-ed77-94fa-407e-a7b86ed9e59d'
To instantiate an Guid object using an existing GUID string, use the constructor:
var guid = new Guid('6fdf6ffc-ed77-94fa-407e-a7b86ed9e59d');
You can check the equality of two different Guid objects using the equals instance method.
Compare a Guid object to a GUID string:
guid.equals('6fdf6ffc-ed77-94fa-407e-a7b86ed9e59d');
// -> true
Compare two Guid objects:
guid.equals(new Guid('6fdf6ffc-ed77-94fa-407e-a7b86ed9e59d'));
// -> true
Installation
You can use npm to install guid: npm install guid
But what if I need a UUID, not a GUID?
There's also a Uuid library which has the exact same functionality, but for UUID's: https://github.com/dandean/uuid-lib