UUID Usages

⸺ by Charles Iliya Krempeaux

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People use UUIDs for all sorts of things.

Nicknames

But most of these uses involves a computer using a as a type of globally unique nickname for something.

So, for example, imagine that on my phone I have an application that stores and manages my contacts. Maybe this is what is in my contact list:

	| Family Name | Given Name | Additional Names | Phone Number |
	|-------------|------------|------------------|--------------|
	| Blow        | Joe        |                  | +16045555555 |
	| Doe         | Jane       |                  | +17781234567 |
	| Doe         | John       |                  | +17783456789 |
	| Doe         | John       | Tiberius         | +12141212121 |

Internally the application secretly creates an indentifier (ID) for each entry in the contact list.

The application could use a lot of different types of IDs for this. But, an application might choose to use UUIDs for its ID:

	| ID                                   | Family Name | Given Name | Additional Names | Phone Number |
	|--------------------------------------|-------------|------------|------------------|--------------|
	| 9d49ff7d-186e-4bcb-8e75-534b8948b92f | Blow        | Joe        |                  | +16045555555 |
	| d79d3ca5-49af-42a7-8565-477d2a91c95b | Doe         | Jane       |                  | +17781234567 |
	| 29912c93-9671-424d-b633-b1bf2cd24c9c | Doe         | John       |                  | +17783456789 |
	| 7a64d432-0ef8-45b4-9055-531f2b78b99e | Doe         | John       | Tiberius         | +12141212121 |

So, in this example, 9d49ff7d-186e-4bcb-8e75-534b8948b92f is a nickname that the application uses for Joe Blow. And d79d3ca5-49af-42a7-8565-477d2a91c95b is a nickname for Jane Dow. Etc.

The user of the contact list application would likely never see these UUID nicknames. But they are there, and covertly being used behind the scenes.