Generate a UUID in Ruby

Ruby is a popular, interpreted, dynamically typed, object-oriented programming language.

First created in 1993 by Matz, Ruby is a true object-oriented, general-purpose language and as such is used in a wide range of contexts. However, Ruby is most famously known for building dynamic websites in conjunction with the Ruby on Rails framework.

How to Generate a UUID in Ruby

The Ruby language has built-in support for generating Version 4 UUIDs. Here's an example of how you can create a UUID in Ruby code.

require 'securerandom'

uuid = SecureRandom.uuid

puts 'Your UUID is: ' + uuid

Explanation

On line #1, we require the securerandom library that is part of the Ruby standard library. The require give us access to the SecureRandom module.
Line #3 generates a new UUID using the SecureRandom module and stores it in the variable, uuid.

The output from line #5 will be something like:

Your UUID is: fc10b881-d9a0-4ab1-a6fd-a102db188f49

Other Options for Generating UUIDs in Ruby

In addition to the SecureRandom module, the are many other options for generating UUIDs in Ruby.

For example, you can use the UUIDTools Gem to generate version 1 UUIDs:

### In your Gemfile ###
gem 'uuidtools'

### In your Ruby code ###
require 'uuidtools'

# Version 1 UUID
uuid = UUIDTools::UUID.timestamp_create.to_s

If you're developing a Ruby on Rails app, you can also use ActiveSupport's Digest::UUID module to generate version 3 and version 5 UUIDs:

require 'activesupport/core_ext/digest/uuid'

# Version 3 UUID
uuid = Digest::UUID.uuid_v3(Digest::UUID::DNS_NAMESPACE, 'www.uuidgenerator.net')

# Version 5 UUID
uuid = Digest::UUID.uuid_v5(Digest::UUID::DNS_NAMESPACE, 'www.uuidgenerator.net')

To generate version 7 UUIDs, you can use the UUID7 gem.

### In your Gemfile ###
gem 'uuid7'

### In your Ruby code ###
require 'uuid7'

# Version 7 UUID
uuid = UUID7.generate

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