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FriendlyID (Java, Swift, Rust, Go)

What is the FriendlyID library?

The FriendlyID library converts a given UUID (with 36 characters) to a URL-friendly ID (a "FriendlyID") which is based on Base62 (with a maximum of 22 characters), as in the example below:

UUID                                        Friendly ID

c3587ec5-0976-497f-8374-61e0c2ea3da5   ->   5wbwf6yUxVBcr48AMbz9cb
|                                           |                              
36 characters                               22 characters or less

In addition, this library allows to:

  • convert from a FriendlyID back to the original UUID; and
  • create a new, random FriendlyID

Why use a FriendlyID?

Universal Unique IDs (UUIDs) provide a non-sequential and unique identifier that can be generated separately from the source database. As a result, it is not possible to guess either the previous or next identifier. That's great, but, to achieve this level of security, a UUID is long (128 bits long) and looks ugly (36 alphanumeric characters including four hyphens which are added to make it easier to read the UUID), as in this example: 123e4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426655440000.

Such a format is:

  • difficult to read (especially if it is part of a URL)
  • difficult to remember
  • cannot be copied with just two mouse-clicks (you have to select manually the start and end positions)
  • can easily become broken across lines when it is copied, pasted, edited, or sent.

Our FriendlyID Java library solves these problems by converting a given UUID using Base62 with alphanumeric characters in the range [0-9A-Za-z] into a FriendlyId which consists of a maximum of 22 characters (but in fact often contains fewer characters).

Supported languages

Curently FriendlyId supports Java (this project) and

Tools

There are available CLI converters for many platforms.

Use cases

Basic (returning a user in a database)

Let us assume that a method in the controller for returning users requires the relevant UUID in order to find a given user in a database, as in this example:

@GetMapping("/users/{userId}") 
public User getUser(@PathVariable UUID userId) {
        [implementation deleted]
}

Without using the Friendly ID library, you could access a given user as follows:

curl http://localhost:8080/users/c3587ec5-0976-497f-8374-61e0c2ea3da5

After adding the FriendlyID library, the controller method itself does not change, but you would be able to access a given user using the relevant FriendlyID as follows:

curl http://localhost:8080/users/5wbwf6yUxVBcr48AMbz9cb

In addition, if a given document returned by such a method contains objects of type UUID, those IDs will also be shortened into FriendlyID format.

Advanced (Optimizing testing)

The FriendlyID library makes it possible to define for UUIDs values which are easy to read. By using names instead of hard-to-remember UUIDs, you can write much simpler tests for your code, for example:

@Test 
public void shouldGetUser() { 
    mockMvc.perform(get("/users/{userId}", "John")) 
        .andExpect(status().isOk()) 
        .andExpect(content().contentType("application/json")) 
        .andExpect(jsonPath("$.uuid", is("John"))); 
}

In the above example, the variable "John" is decoded by the library to the correct UUID, in this case, 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000a69efb. In this way, you can give a variable in a test class a truly meaningful value and, as a result, an assertion which refers to that variable becomes exceptionally easy to understand in your test program.

FriendlyID library

Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.devskiller.friendly-id</groupId>
    <artifactId>friendly-id</artifactId>
    <version>1.1.0</version>
</dependency>

Usage

FriendlyId.createFriendlyId();

This creates a new, random FriendlyID, for example: 5wbwf6yUxVBcr48AMbz9cb

FriendlyId.toFriendlyId(UUID.fromString("c3587ec5-0976-497f-8374-61e0c2ea3da5"));

This converts a UUID in the form of a string to a FriendlyID, for example: 5wbwf6yUxVBcr48AMbz9cb

FriendlyId.toUuid("5wbwf6yUxVBcr48AMbz9cb");

This converts a FriendlyID to its UUID, for example: c3587ec5-0976-497f-8374-61e0c2ea3da5

Notes

  • As every UUID is a 128-bit number, a FriendlyID can also store only a 128-bit number.
  • If a FriendlyID has any leading zeros, those leading zeros are ignored - for example, 00cafe is treated as cafe.

Integrations

Spring Boot integration

The FriendlyID library includes a Spring configuration to make it easy to add shorter IDs to an application. With a typical application based on Spring Boot, for your controllers to be able to use FriendlyIDs when communicating with the outside world, just add one new starter dependency as follows:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.devskiller.friendly-id</groupId>
    <artifactId>friendly-id-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
    <version>1.1.0</version>
</dependency>

Let us assume that you'll use this sample application:

@SpringBootApplication
@RestController
public class Application {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
    }

    @GetMapping("/bars/{bar}")
    public Bar getBar(@PathVariable UUID bar) {
        return new Bar(UUID.randomUUID());
    }

    @Value
    class Bar {
        private final UUID id;
    }
}

This command: curl http://localhost:8080/bars/5fD1KwsxRcGhBqWNju0jzt

will result in the following output:

{"id":"52OMXhWiAqUWwII0c97Svl"}

In this case, Bar is a POJO class which is converted by Spring MVC to a JSON document. This Bar object has one field of type UUID, and this field is output to the JSON document as a FriendlyID instead of a UUID. Although the application uses the relevant UUID internally, from an external point of view, only the FriendlyID is visible.

Jackson integration

First, add the following Jackson module dependency:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.devskiller.friendly-id</groupId>
    <artifactId>friendly-id-jackson-datatype</artifactId>
    <version>1.1.0</version>
</dependency>

Then register the FriendlyIdModule module as follows:

ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper()
   .registerModule(new FriendlyIdModule());

Contributing

Thinking of helping us out? We invite you to take a look at:

License

The project is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license. For further details, please see the License page.