Generating unique N-valued key

Question

I want to generate unique random, N-valued key. This key can contain numbers and latin characters, i.e. A-Za-z0-9.

The only solution I am thinking about is something like this (pseudocode):

key = "";
smb = "ABC…abc…0123456789"; // allowed symbols
for (i = 0; i < N; i++) {
    key += smb[rnd(0, smb.length() - 1)]; // select symbol at random position
}

Is there any better solution? What can you suggest?

Answer 1

I would look into GUIDs. From the Wikipedia entry, "the primary purpose of the GUID is to have a totally unique number," which sounds exactly like what you are looking for. There are several implementations out there that generate GUIDs, so it's likely you will not have to reinvent the wheel.

Answer 2

You could do a base64 encoding of some random data and remove the +, /, and = characters from the result? I don't know if this would make a predictable distribution. Also, it seems like more work that what you're doing now, which is a fine solution.

Answer 3

Keeping in mind that the whole field of cryptography relies on, amongst other things, making random numbers. Therefore the NSA, the CIA, and some of the best mathematicians in the world are working on this so I guarantee you that there are better ideas.

Me? I'd just do what fbrereto suggests, and just get a guid. Or look into cryptographic key generators, or y'know, some lava lamps and a camera.

Oh, and as to the code you have; depending on the language, you may need to seed the RNG, or it'll generate the same key every time.

Answer 4

Assuming you're using a language/library without an utterly pathetic random number generator, what you've got looks pretty good. N symbols uniformly distributed over a reasonable alphabet works for me, and no amount of applying fancier code is likely to make it more random (just slower).

(For the record, pathetic would include ditching the high-order bits of the underlying random numbers when choosing a value from the given range. While ideally all RNGs would make every bit equally random, in practice that's not so; the higher-order bits tend to be more random. This means that the modulus operator is totally the wrong thing to use when clamping to a restricted range.)

Answer 5

Whatever you do, if you wind up generating a key that uses all numbers and all letters, and if a person is ever going to see that key (which is likely if you are using numbers and letters), omit the characters l, I, 1, O, and 0. People get them confused.

Nothing in your post addresses the question of uniqueness. You're going to have to have some way of not generating the same key twice. Usually, when I need a unique key, I have some unique information to start with. I usually take a one-way hash like MD5, then there are ways to convert that to a key with varying degrees of readability:

• Convert to hex
• Base64 encode it
• Use bits of of the key to index into a list of words.

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Example: the unique string computed by hashing the part of this answer above the horizontal line is

abduction's brogue's melted bragger's