Generate a UUID in Visual Basic .NET

Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET) is a programming language developed by Microsoft as the successor to the original Visual Basic language.

As its name implies, VB.NET is implemented on Microsoft's .NET Framework - one of the original 2 languages (along with C#) developed by Microsoft for their .NET Framework. Like C#, it is an object-oriented, statically-typed, general-purpose programming language used in many different domains, but is run almost exclusively on Windows computers.

How to Generate a UUID in VB.NET

The VB.NET language, via the .NET Framework, has built-in support for generating Version 4 UUIDs. Here's an example of how you can create a UUID in VB.NET code.

Imports System.Diagnostics

Module Module1
    Sub Main()
        Dim myuuid As Guid = Guid.NewGuid()
        Dim myuuidAsString As String = myuuid.ToString()

        Debug.WriteLine("Your UUID is: " & myuuidAsString)
    End Sub
End Module

Explanation

On line #5, we use the Guid.NewGuid() static method to create a new Guid instance, stored in the variable, myuuid. In .NET, a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) is equivalent to a UUID.
On line #6, we use the ToString() method to convert the Guid instance to a String. The String representation of a Guid looks like a standard UUID (i.e. 9d68bfe1-4d92-4054-9c8f-f3ec267c78fb). If you're going to store the UUID in a file, database or model property, or send it via an API call to a different application, you'll almost always need the String representation of the myuuid instance, rather than the myuuid instance itself.

The output from line #8 will be something like:

Your UUID is: 9d68bfe1-4d92-4054-9c8f-f3ec267c78fb

Convert from a string to a UUID

Although it's rare, in some circumstances you might need to convert from a String representation of a UUID (like the one from line #6 above) back into an instance of Guid.

VB.NET provides for this scenario with a Guid constructor, Guid(string). You can call this method like this:

Imports System.Diagnostics

Module Module1
    Sub Main()
        Dim myuuid As Guid = Guid.NewGuid()
        Dim myuuidAsString As String = myuuid.ToString()

        Dim sameUuid As New Guid(myuuidAsString)
        Debug.Assert(sameUuid.Equals(myuuid))
    End Sub
End Module

Explanation

Line #8 shows converting the string representation of a UUID into a Guid instance (sameUuid) using the Guid(String) constructor method.
Line #9 is included to show that the 2 Guid instances are equal.

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