yid

Synopsis

const yid = require('yid')

console.log(yid())
// -> 1517049989798-7496988299172

A 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()
• uses a substring of https://www.npmjs.com/package/math-random for the second part

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.

const yid = require('yid')

// get 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

Author

Andrew Chilton.

License

ISC.