uuid() generates repeating values

[yostx038]

When generating UUIDs with use_time set to FALSE, identical values often appear in the output, even for very small values of n. Example:

uuid(n = 10, use_time=FALSE)
[1] "82543727-120e-438c-b656-23ef800ee96f" "a56363a5-120e-438c-b933-b581800ee96f" "27375482-120e-438c-b933-b581800ee96f"
[4] "00000000-120e-438c-b933-b581800ee96f" "82543727-120e-438c-b933-b581800ee96f" "a56363a5-120e-438c-b933-b581800ee96f"
[7] "27375482-120e-438c-b933-b581800ee96f" "00000000-120e-438c-b933-b581800ee96f" "82543727-120e-438c-b933-b581800ee96f"
[10] "a56363a5-120e-438c-b933-b581800ee96f"

[richfitz]

Thanks for the report: the ids::uuid is a very thin wrapper around uuid::UUIDgenerate; the help there says

use.time: logical, if ‘TRUE’ then time-based UUID is generated, if
‘FALSE’ then a random UUID is generated, if ‘NA’ then random
one is generated if a sufficiently reliable source of random
numbers can be found, otehrwise a time-based UUID is
generated.

So your system must be triggering that situation (insufficiently reliable source of random numbers)? I can't replicate on Linux - are you perhaps on windows? On any case this is really not ideal! I suspect you're hitting this issue in the underlying uuid package.

You might find that the ids::random_id() behaves better - that uses openssl for the random data