TimeBasedId Generator

A lightweight Rust library for generating unique identifiers based on system uptime and Unix timestamp. Perfect for applications that need simple, fast, and unique ID generation without external dependencies.

Features

🚀 Fast generation - No network calls or complex computations
🔢 128-bit identifiers - Ample space for uniqueness
🎯 Time-based - Combines OS uptime and Unix timestamp
🧪 No dependencies - Minimal footprint (except for system uptime)
📦 Simple API - Easy to integrate and use

How It Works

The generator creates a 128-bit ID by combining two components:

OS Uptime (shifted left by 64 bits)
Current Unix timestamp in nanoseconds

Formula: ID = (uptime << 64) + current_unix_nanoseconds

Usage

Add this to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]

timebased-id = "0.1"

Basic usage:

use timebased_id::TimeBasedId;

fn main() {
    // Generate new Id:
    let id = TimeBasedId::default();

    // Get the numeric id
    let value = id.value();
    println!("Generated id: {}", value);

    // IDs are unique (for non-simultaneous generation )
    let id2 = TimeBasedId::default();
    assert_ne!(id.value(), id2.value());
}

Ideal Use Cases

This generator is perfect when:

Objects are created with time intervals greater than 1 nanosecond
Systems reboot no more than once per second
You need simple, fast, local ID generation
You don't require strict chronological ordering across system reboots

Project Structure

src/
├── lib.rs          # Library exports
└── id.rs           # Core ID generation logic

API Reference

TimeBasedId

The main struct representing a generated ID.

Methods

default() -> Self - Creates a new unique ID
value(&self) -> u128 - Returns the numeric value of the ID

Traits Implemented

Debug
Clone
Eq
PartialEq
Hash

Development

Run test:

cargo test

Performance

The generator is extremely fast as it only performs:

One system call for uptime
One system call for current time
Two arithmetic operations

License

MIT license in LICENSE file

Contributing

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

timebased-id 0.1.0