Ian A. Newby wrote:

> Hi Lester,
> Just to be picky :), (I had the uuidlib library written by an
> associate some years ago), the library produces internally a GUID in
> its native format. This can be returned in two forms...
>
> GUID is the common windows GUID, consisting of hex characters.
>
> UUID is a 22 character string, containing only characters which are
> usable in URLs, organized so that Firebirds indexing compression is
> effective.
>
> There are routines in the library to convert back and forth between
> them. So a UUID is as good as a GUID, just shorter.
>
> So the names might be wrong, but they do work.

UUID has a standard but there seems to be an argument at the moment as
to who 'owns' it ;)
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4122.txt is the current free one but that is
apparently being dropped in favor of the ISO/IEC 11578 for which we have
to pay money :(
I was under the impression that GUID did NOT follow the same rules as
UUID, but as far as I can tell, Microsoft HAVE come in line with the
UUID standard.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnnetcomp/html/PPCGuidGen.asp
refers to the NewGuid method which is not compatible with .NET
Framework, but I can't currently lay my hands on the original comparison
document - which is obviously now well out of date.

So the identifier provided by the library is not ACTUALLY a UUID - I
know - I've already had it fail a security audit :) But it now seems
that what is one customers REQUIREMENT to validate the generating
machines ID is anothers security hole ;) But that 'hole' WAS used to
track the creator of the Melissa worm - so perhaps privacy is only
necessary when someone is creating mayhem ?

Perhaps a new note with the library that the UUID format used does not
actually match the current standards for UUID's - which now it would
seem are the same as GUID.

Can anybody remember the history here or am I simply loosing my marbles
even quicker :) We are going back to the last century!

--
Lester Caine
-----------------------------
L.S.Caine Electronic Services
Treasurer - Firebird Foundation Inc.