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UUID Generator Actor 🔑

👁 Apify Actor
👁 Python

A robust, high-performance Actor for generating universally unique identifiers (UUIDs) in bulk on the Apify platform.

🎯 Overview

The UUID Generator Actor provides a professional solution for generating RFC-compliant universally unique identifiers at scale. Whether you need a handful of UUIDs for testing or thousands for production data systems, this Actor delivers fast, reliable, and standards-compliant results.

Key Features

✨ Multiple UUID Versions

• UUID v1: Timestamp-based identifiers (includes MAC address and time)
• UUID v4: Random/pseudo-random identifiers (most common)
• UUID v5: Namespace-based identifiers (deterministic, based on namespace + name)

🚀 Bulk Generation

• Generate up to 100,000 UUIDs in a single run
• Optimized for performance and memory efficiency
• Progress tracking and detailed logging

📊 Flexible Output Formats

• JSON: Structured data with metadata
• CSV: Spreadsheet-compatible format
• Plain Text: One UUID per line

⚙️ Customizable Options

• Uppercase/lowercase formatting
• With or without hyphens
• Optional timestamps and indexing
• Namespace configuration for UUID v5

🎬 Quick Start

Basic Usage

1. Open the Actor in Apify Console
2. Configure your input parameters:

   {
   "uuidVersion":"v4",
   "quantity":100,
   "outputFormat":"json"
   }

3. Click Start and retrieve your UUIDs from the dataset

UUID v4 (Random) - Default

Generate 1,000 random UUIDs:

{
"uuidVersion":"v4",
"quantity":1000,
"outputFormat":"json",
"includeHyphens":true,
"includeUppercase":false
}

Output:

[
{
"uuid":"550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
"version":"v4"
},
{
"uuid":"6ba7b810-9dad-11d1-80b4-00c04fd430c8",
"version":"v4"
}
]

UUID v1 (Timestamp-based)

Generate time-ordered UUIDs with timestamps:

{
"uuidVersion":"v1",
"quantity":50,
"outputFormat":"json",
"addTimestamp":true,
"addIndex":true
}

Output:

[
{
"uuid":"6c84fb90-12c4-11e1-840d-7b25c5ee775a",
"index":1,
"timestamp":"2025-12-28T10:30:45.123456Z",
"version":"v1"
}
]

UUID v5 (Namespace-based)

Generate deterministic UUIDs based on namespace and name:

{
"uuidVersion":"v5",
"quantity":10,
"namespace":"dns",
"name":"example.com",
"outputFormat":"json"
}

Output:

[
{
"uuid":"cfbff0d1-9375-5685-968c-48ce8b15ae17",
"version":"v5"
}
]

Plain Text Output

Generate UUIDs without hyphens in plain text format:

{
"uuidVersion":"v4",
"quantity":5,
"outputFormat":"txt",
"includeHyphens":false,
"includeUppercase":true
}

Output (stored in key-value store):

550E8400E29B41D4A716446655440000
6BA7B8109DAD11D180B400C04FD430C8
F47AC10B58CC4372A5670E02B2C3D479
9B76C58E9A0B4F1E8E9D3C8A6F4E2D1B
3F2504E0D7E911E19A1F0242AC120002

📋 Input Parameters

Namespace Options for UUID v5

• dns - Domain Name System namespace
• url - URL namespace
• oid - ISO OID namespace
• x500 - X.500 DN namespace
• Custom UUID string (e.g., "6ba7b810-9dad-11d1-80b4-00c04fd430c8")

📤 Output

JSON Format (Dataset)

All runs save data to the Apify dataset. JSON format includes structured objects:

[
{
"uuid":"550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000",
"version":"v4",
"index":1,
"timestamp":"2025-12-28T10:30:45.123456Z"
}
]

CSV Format (Key-Value Store)

CSV output is saved to the key-value store with key OUTPUT:

uuid,version,index,timestamp
550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000,v4,1,2025-12-28T10:30:45.123456Z
6ba7b810-9dad-11d1-80b4-00c04fd430c8,v4,2,2025-12-28T10:30:45.123456Z

Plain Text Format (Key-Value Store)

Plain text output (one UUID per line) is saved to the key-value store:

550e8400-e29b-41d4-a716-446655440000
6ba7b810-9dad-11d1-80b4-00c04fd430c8
f47ac10b-58cc-4372-a567-0e02b2c3d479

🎯 Use Cases

Software Development

• Generate unique identifiers for database records
• Create API keys and session tokens
• Test data generation for QA environments

Database Administration

• Populate primary key columns
• Generate unique constraint values
• Database migration and testing

API Development

• Create unique request IDs for distributed systems
• Generate idempotency keys
• Microservices correlation IDs

Testing & QA

• Load testing with unique identifiers
• Automated test data generation
• Performance testing scenarios

System Integration

• ETL processes requiring unique identifiers
• Data synchronization across systems
• Event tracking and logging

🏗️ Architecture

This Actor is built with:

• Python 3.13 - Latest Python runtime
• Apify SDK - For seamless platform integration
• UUID Module - Python's built-in RFC 4122 compliant UUID library

Performance Characteristics

• Speed: Generates 10,000 UUIDs in ~1-2 seconds
• Memory: Efficient batch processing for large quantities
• Scalability: Handles up to 100,000 UUIDs per run
• Reliability: Built-in error handling and validation

🔧 Technical Details

UUID Versions Explained

UUID v1 (Timestamp-based)

• Format: time_low-time_mid-time_high_and_version-clock_seq-node
• Includes: 60-bit timestamp + 48-bit MAC address
• Use case: When temporal ordering is important
• Note: May expose MAC address (privacy consideration)

UUID v4 (Random)

• Format: 122 random bits + 6 fixed bits
• Cryptographically strong pseudo-random
• Use case: General purpose, most common
• Collision probability: Extremely low (~1 in 10^36)

UUID v5 (Namespace + Name)

• Based on SHA-1 hash of namespace + name
• Deterministic: Same input = same UUID
• Use case: When reproducibility is needed
• Supports standard and custom namespaces

RFC Compliance

All generated UUIDs comply with RFC 4122 specifications:

• Proper version bits (bits 12-15)
• Proper variant bits (bits 62-63)
• Standard hyphenated format (8-4-4-4-12)

🚀 Running Locally

Prerequisites

• Python 3.9+
• Apify CLI (npm install -g apify-cli)

Installation

# Clone or download the Actor
git clone <your-repo-url>
cd uuid-generator
# Install dependencies
pip install-r requirements.txt
# Run locally
apify run

Development

# Login to Apify
apify login
# Test locally
apify run --purge
# Push to Apify platform
apify push

📊 Examples & Tutorials

Example 1: Database Seeding

Generate 5,000 UUIDs for database primary keys:

{
"uuidVersion":"v4",
"quantity":5000,
"outputFormat":"csv",
"includeHyphens":true,
"addIndex":true
}

Import the CSV directly into your database:

LOADDATAINFILE'uuids.csv'
INTOTABLE your_table
FIELDSTERMINATEDBY','
(uuid_column,@dummy, id_column);

Example 2: API Testing

Generate test identifiers with timestamps:

{
"uuidVersion":"v1",
"quantity":1000,
"outputFormat":"json",
"addTimestamp":true,
"addIndex":true
}

Example 3: Namespace-based IDs

Generate consistent UUIDs for domain names:

{
"uuidVersion":"v5",
"quantity":100,
"namespace":"dns",
"name":"api.example.com",
"outputFormat":"json"
}

🔗 Integration

Using Apify API

const ApifyClient =require('apify-client');
const client =newApifyClient({
token:'YOUR_API_TOKEN',
});
const input ={
uuidVersion:'v4',
quantity:1000,
outputFormat:'json',
};
const run =await client.actor('YOUR_USERNAME/uuid-generator').call(input);
const{ items }=await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(`Generated ${items.length} UUIDs`);

Python Integration

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient('YOUR_API_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('YOUR_USERNAME/uuid-generator').call(
 run_input={
'uuidVersion':'v4',
'quantity':1000,
'outputFormat':'json',
}
)
dataset = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId'])
items = dataset.list_items().items
print(f"Generated {len(items)} UUIDs")

🤝 Support & Contribution

Issues & Feedback

Found a bug or have a feature request? Please open an issue on the GitHub repository.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

📄 License

This Actor is available for use on the Apify platform. See Apify Terms of Service for details.

🏆 Apify 1 Million Challenge

This Actor was developed as part of the Apify 1 Million Challenge, demonstrating the power and flexibility of the Apify platform for building scalable automation tools.

📚 Resources

• Apify Documentation
• Apify SDK for Python
• UUID RFC 4122 Specification
• Python UUID Module

Built with ❤️ for the Apify community