Are you a developer working  with microsoft technologies and looking for a unique identifiers for  components/applications/files ? Or are you a database developer or administrator looking for primary keys tables?

Well! in this article I will show you how to create a GUID (globally unique identifier) which is the best version of an ID and almost as unique as a finger print.

GUIDs are  128-bit values commonly displayed as 32 hexadecimal digit and can be used on any item in the universe.

In this Article we shall use excel RANDBETWEEN and CHAR functions to generate this 32 hexadecimal digit.

►CHAR function generates characters based on their numeric code.(See Character Encoding)

For example smallcase for alphabets fall between code 99 (a) and 122(z)

►RANDBETWEEN functions generates a random number in a given range.

For example RANDBETWEEN(99,122) will be equal to either 99,100,101,102……..122 everytime it recalculates

Therefore CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(99,122)) will be equal to either a,b,c,d……..z everytime  RANDBETWEEN recalculates.

A GUID follows a pattern of hexadecimal digits separated into five groups i.c 8-4-4-4-12 with this in mind you can be able to write a fomula as  shown below

=CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(100,106))&CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(97,122))&RANDBETWEEN(133,333)&CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(97,122))&RANDBETWEEN(77,99)&"-"&RANDBETWEEN(0,5)&CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(97,122))&RANDBETWEEN(0,5)&CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(97,122))&"-"&CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(97,122))&RANDBETWEEN(723,971)&"-"&RANDBETWEEN(6,9)&CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(97,122))&RANDBETWEEN(6,9)&CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(97,122))&"-"&RANDBETWEEN(537,813)&CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(97,122))&CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(97,122))&RANDBETWEEN(493,503)&CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(97,122))&RANDBETWEEN(3,9)&CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(97,122))&CHAR(RANDBETWEEN(97,122))

The fomula results to a GUID like below

he139w86-2d4q-l970-7s6k-645xt500n6gm

Different developers use different types of GUIDs depending on the Item they want to identify thus the 3 types in our GUID Generator

• 81CI9K5423FYF2MZI19KWOT7YED6T468–UpperCased
• {vh148h972s0vt8496k9v727vw499u6rc}–Braced
• he139w86-2d4q-l970-7s6k-645xt500n6gm–Hyphened

That’s All!

Download GUID Generator and give it a Try

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