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sql-serverguid

Are GUID collisions possible?

I'm working on a database in SQL Server 2000 that uses a GUID for each user that uses the app it's tied to. Somehow, two users ended up with the same GUID. I know that microsoft uses an algorithm to generate a random GUID that has an extremely low chance of causing collisons, but is a collision still possible?

Solution

  • Basically, no. I think someone went mucking with your database. Depending on the version GUID you're using the value is either unique (for things like version 1 GUIDs), or both unique and unpredictable (for things like version 4 GUIDs). SQL Server's implementation for their NEWID() function appears to use a 128-bit random number, so you're not going to get a collision.

    For a 1% chance of collision, you'd need to generate about 2,600,000,000,000,000,000 GUIDs.